Post by Hubert Smalls on Mar 28, 2017 16:16:22 GMT -5
6/22/2009
Starkville, MS
“Who the FUCK is throwing rocks against my cabin?”
A stout, red-faced teen with a military-style crew cut stormed out of the swinging door of his studio shanty: identical to the fifteen others that formed a square encompassing a larger common area building in the counselor housing unit. While he had shared the bunk with four other counselors, he was currently the only one inside: trying to concentrate on his lesson plans for the next day.
Meanwhile, the antagonists just outside the cabin felt insurmountable joy as this was just the reaction they’d hoped for.
“It was us, Splash. What the fuck you gonna do about it?”
Jake Munson, meanwhile, sat at a distance about three shacks down on the front steps, concealing a Marlboro Light as he observed the action. Chuckling to himself, he knew exactly how this would go: the ‘cool’ kids would try to instigate a fight with the chubbier counterpart, and ultimately he would retreat and continue to be tormented by them.
He almost felt bad about it. Seeing as though he was the one responsible for the nickname “Splash,” it certainly didn’t help him make any friends among the staff. Two weeks prior to this as they were engaged in pre-camp preparation, the kid had been tasked with the thankless job of pressure washing the waterfront dock. As luck would have it, he had accidentally jerked the nozzle too hard, which had turned the $300 equipment into a $0 piece of metal that fell quickly to the bottom of the lake.
“The next thing I knew,” he explained to Jake and a couple of others who had witnessed it, “I turned around and heard a big splash!”
“Well, Splash, sucks to be you,” Jake responded off-the-cuff. And thus a star was born.
Still, he did not react as Splash retrieved a cot from nearby and lifted it over his head, threatening to hurl it at the bullies. He’d seen this type of thing before, knowing full well no one would really get hurt. It’d only been a couple of weeks but the lack of virtually any female presence had turned this into a den of wolves covered in testosterone fur. They needed these hostile encounters in order to blow off some steam.
This is exactly why Jake panicked and “needed to bum a smoke” from one of the older guys on the staff ten minutes prior to this moment, as he’d received a text that he wasn’t expecting.
Hey, it’s Camille i’m in starkville, can u hang out sometime this weekend?
Knowing that there was literally no excuse as to why she couldn’t come pick him up, he desperately wanted to find some way to get to her: these shit heads would essentially ruin any chance he might have had from the get go if she were to spend five seconds in this place.
3/25/2017
Valley Stream, NY
(On-Camera)
Ever since the times of the Neanderthal, art has been a component of self-expression and storytelling. Today in the first hints of spring, a couple of the local children in the family apartment community where Hubert Smalls and Miss Lane reside are busy telling their own stories with large hunks of sidewalk chalk in the courtyard area of the complex.
Amidst those kids is the childlike athlete in question, dressed down in a pair of Wranglers and a maroon Mississippi State hoodie. Sitting Indian-style across from a little blond girl, the two work as a tandem on a portrait of a more ideal living situation. The girl, placing the finishing touches on the roof of a three-story house with a piece of blue chalk, works diligently without paying any attention to the two-man film crew standing over them.
Hubert, having just dropped the yellow in exchange for a black, hastily draws a few lowercase “m’s” next to the blaring sun, ensuring that the home has some semblance of nature aside from the bushes that sit in the front yard of the pastoral masterpiece.
“You done a good job on the house, Braylynn,” Smalls compliments.
“My name’s BRAE-VREN, not Braylynn, mister,” the girl responds with a sassy overtone.
Hubert’s cheeks turn a slight shade of pink. “Sorry, Braevren. Um, I reckon I gotta do an interview now. I done finished the birds and the sun.”
Braevren glances up momentarily from her work, closely examining the M-birds and the sun. Her nose crinkles.
“Why’d you make the sun have an upside-down frowny face?” she asks.
“Oh, um,” Hubert stammers, looking down. The camera also pans to reveal that Hubert, in his attempts to bring a little cheer along with the giant star, had apparently forgotten that he was drawing from a reverse perspective. “I reckon I forgot to make it the other way.”
“That’s okay. I like it,” Braevren comments. “Bye, Mister Hubert.”
Hubert grins. “Bye, Braevren.”
Clamoring to his feet, Smalls stands and motions for the camera to follow him several paces to the west. Without any type of queue, Hubert begins to go off the cuff to address the AWE audience.
“Hey y’all. Reckon I gotta tell you that I don’t even know why y’all wanna cheer for me sometimes, but I sure do ‘preciate it and makes me wanna do real good for you when I’m out in that there ring,” he starts.
“So I know y’all weren’t too happy with me when I tried ta just let Jessie win the match last Sundey in Iower. Sorry ‘bout that to y’all fans and Jessie. I was just tryin’ to do what I thought was right,” he explains. “But I reckon it weren’t right to not put my effort in, ‘cause she real talented and a good rassler.”
“One time, back when I rassled in hike school,” Hubert remembers, “I was in a tourney-mint for the district title in my weight class. For those of you ain’t acquainted with rasslin in school, it’s purty different than in the Alpha Rasslin Empires.
“The boys’ gotta cover their tiddies in their outfits too,” he explains, slightly blushing, “and you gotta wear this thang on your head, and also you can’t rassle no one bigger or smaller than you.
“Anyway, I done got to the finals ‘cause I’d done good, and the boy I was rasslin’, he was in the same gym as his school. He had his mama and his daddy there, everyone was cheerin’ him on. I didn’t have my mama and daddy there ‘cause they done gone when I was little. And my granny had to work at the Family Dollar that weekend so she wasn’t there neither,” he trails, with a rather emotionally telling statement being uttered stoically.
“Well, I ended up winnin’ that match. And that boy who was purty tough and good at rasslin’, well, he ended up real sad. I ain’t feel too good about that ‘cause his family was there and they were prolly real sad too. I don’t like when no one feels bad on account of me.
“But I reckon now we done grown and sometimes you gotta win and sometimes you gon lose, so I guess I don’t need to worry none about makin’ someone feel bad. Me and Jessie hugged and she didn’t feel bad no more after the match, so it worked out okay,” he proclaims. “She is my friend and I hope we are friends forever.”
Hubert displays a slight grin on his face as he stops to lean on the trunk of a shade tree, continuing his monologue.
“I learnt in movies and stuff that sometimes friends fight each other and still can be friends after they do that,” Hubert muses. “That’s what me and Jessie did and I really do hope that maybe Bindy and Aner can make up too someday.
“Aner and me gotta fight each other in the Southern Dakotas, but I don’t reckon she wants me to let her just win, and I ain’t gonna do that. But I know that she is real nice to me even though sometimes I don’t understand why she does mean stuff,” he continues. “She says that Bindy ain’t our real friend. And I don’t know. I still like Bindy but she ain’t tried to call or text me or nothin’. I know I could probably do it but I know she done hurt and probably tryin’ to get better so I don’t wanna bother her none.
“I guess I also don’t know if maybe Aner is right. Her law-yor made some sense...maybe. But I still want to be her friend. And I wanna still be friends with Aner and her to be friends with Bindy and for us to all eat pizza and drank Yoo-Hoos and have ice cream and cake.
“But I reckon I can’t make no one do nothing they don’t wanna,” he mutters, defeated. “So I guess I just need to focus on rastlin’ good and let ever’thang sort itself out.”
Smalls, eyes lifting toward the camera, releases a sigh. “I hope it do. Even when the Rebels and State fight each other, we all still Mississippi in the end.”
3/25/17
Valley Stream, NY
(Off-camera)
“You off, Mark?” Terrence, the boom operator asks just moments after Hubert’s thoughtful closer.
The cameraman nods, taking the piece of equipment off of his shoulder and setting it down temporarily on the grass below.
Meanwhile, Hubert, still lingering around the setting, retrieves his iPhone from the back of his jeans pocket. As he observes the screen, a puzzled look crosses his face.
“Bindy done sent me a message on the Twitter,” he remarks aloud.
“Oh yeah?” Terrence asks, not particularly interested but politely to the AWE competitor. “What’d she say?”
Hubert swipes an index finger across the face of the phone, pulling up the DM. He reads it to the “curious” audience.
“‘Hubie,’” he starts, reciting very slowly, “‘I know you must have my number blocked, because you aren’t respondin’ to my calls and texts. We need to talk. You can’t believe what Ana told you, she is just trying to ma-ma-manip…’”
“Manipulate,” Terrence helps.
“Thenks. ‘Manipulate you. Please call me. At least hear me out.’”
Terrence shoots Hubert a look. “Man, did you block her number?”
Hubert looks up with doe-eyed innocence. “No! I ain’t even know how to do that!”
The cameraman, Mark, slinks up to Terrence and quietly whispers in his ear.
“We need him to Skype her. We need to get this on film. It’ll be gold,” he advises.
Terrence turns to Mark, nodding in agreement. “Hey Hubert,” he says, “message her back and ask if she has Skype. That’s S-K-Y-P-E. We’ll help you call her, this way you can see her on the computer screen and talk to her.”
Hubert raises his eyes up to Terrence and Mark. “You can talk on the phone on the computer?”
“You sure can, big dog.”
The Cat Daddy’s eyes light up. “Okay! Let’s go then.”