Tub’s rope began spinning. I lashed out with an arm to try to steady him but only felt his fingers grasp frantically at mine for an instant before his weight dragged him down. Naturally the thread of hemp snapped immediately and Tub went down on his ass, right in front of everyone.

The arm I’d used to help Tub never made it back to my rope. It pinwheeled, my feet slipped, and then I dangled from one arm. Unlike Tub, I tried to hold on and instead slid all the way down, the rope scorching my palm until I struck the floor with both knees. It hurt all the way up into my skull.

Coach Lawrence offered both of us a hand. Tub looked miserable, wounded, resigned to his fatness. The chant of his name, which for a while we could have pretended was serious, had broken apart into hoots and howls. A single basketball continued its steady SMACK, SMACK. Eventually Tub made it to his feet, rubbing his sore butt, and that’s when the basketball looped over the crowd and bounced off the side of his face. You couldn’t deny that it was one hell of a throw.

For the second time that Friday, Tub and I found ourselves cleaning our wounds. There was little either of us could do this time to lighten the mood. Both of us had lingered in the shower, where our blood ran into the central drain. Now we were the last two guys in the locker room. I was almost dressed, but Tub sat motionless and dripping on the far end of the bench, facing away from me, still wearing his towel.

It sounded like something a teacher would say, but I couldn’t come up with anything better.

“Don’t let them get to you, Tub.”

“Gee, thanks for that totally sound and utterly useless piece of advice, Mr. Guidance Counselor.”

“They’re not our friends. Who cares what they think?”

“Then who are our friends, Jim? Go ahead and list them. I’m sure I can spare the zero seconds that will take.”

“Don’t be dumb. We have friends.”

“I’m not talking about friends that only exist in chat rooms. Or friends of the feline or canine variety. I’m talking about real, human friends who do human-type stuff, like talk and hang out and eat with silverware. Wouldn’t that be great, Jim? Some friends who knew how to use silverware? That’d be a real step up for us at this point.”

Tub’s eyes glowered over his bare shoulder.

“Trying to cheer me up just makes it worse,” he said. “We have to accept who we are. And before you ask, I’ll tell you. We’re nobody. We have no life. We have nothing to look forward to. We’re not special. I just want it to go away. All of it. The stupid being scared. Doesn’t it seem we’ve been scared forever?”

“Look, remember when I was scared of monsters in my closet?” I asked.