FICTION

When you’re young, you wander through life with a carefree attitude, convinced that nothing tragic will ever befall you. It’s not that you think you’re made of steel; it’s just that misfortune always seems to strike elsewhere, affecting other people. You know these people—your classmates who sit a few rows ahead in math, friends who share secrets during recess, rivals who challenge you in sports, and those vaguely familiar faces passing in the school hallway whose names always escape you. “Who is that?” You recognize them; they might live across the street or next door, but their names never stick. You catch wind of their troubles in hushed conversations over cafeteria trays or notice the signs—a bruise blooming under an eye or a sudden empty desk where someone used to sit. But you? You’re shielded by an invisible armor. Untouchable. Until one day, that armor cracks, and the reality that you’re just as vulnerable as everyone else comes crashing down.

As a guy growing up, you were conditioned to believe the worst thing you could be called was a wimp or a pussy. Those words stung like a slap to the face. But the worst of all was “pansy.” It technically meant the same thing, yet it carried a unique venom, like an elite-tier insult that could ignite a brawl. They were fighting words, as the old-timers would say. I often imagined a secret list of such words that, when uttered, left you with no choice but to unleash the rage pent up inside the beast within us all, a primal code of manhood handed down through the ages by our Neanderthal ancestors. The rationale behind it was nonexistent—nonsensical, absurd, or downright foolish didn’t even begin to cover it. I even went so far as to ask friends and acquaintances, hoping to uncover this mythical list’s existence, but they just gave me strange looks as if I was the odd one out. “Weirdo.” There’s another term I’m certain once ranked high on that clandestine list.

If there was one thing certain to amplify male foolishness, it was the presence of a girl. You might assume it would be the confident ones with a smooth stride and an easy grin. But you’d be mistaken. It was simply the presence of any female. Something about her steady, evaluating gaze seemed to flick a switch in our lizard brains. Suddenly, we were all posturing like peacocks, vying for attention as if auditioning for the role of “Alpha Male #2” in a poorly scripted high school drama.

“Cut…cut, cut, cut…” the director’s voice echoed through the set, slicing through our bravado. He rose from his worn director’s chair with an exasperated sigh, his footsteps heavy as he approached. He muttered incoherently, his brows furrowing in frustration. Turning abruptly, he addressed a bewildered production assistant who appeared as if they had stumbled onto the wrong set altogether. “It’s missing… I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his temple as if the motion might conjure clarity from the chaos in his mind. The PA shrugged, their confusion mirroring his own.

“More, you know? More,” he declared, fixing his gaze on you with an intensity that suggested the simple word held the universe’s mysteries. It might, who knows? Because at that moment, you felt the weight of impending humiliation hanging over you like a storm cloud, threatening to unleash if you failed to decipher this cryptic instruction. So you reset, ready to reenact the scene with exaggerated bravado and clumsy confidence. A muscular guy, his shirt straining against bulging biceps, lunged forward to take a swing at a smaller guy. The smaller one stood his ground, fists clenched and eyes steely—not because he had faith in his victory, but because maintaining dignity in defeat was preferable to being labeled a pansy. Who needs self-preservation when fragile masculinity whispers its deceitful promises of status and respect in your ear?

The worst beating I ever took wasn’t even for something I did. And that, frankly, was offensive. I was the kind of kid who had done plenty to earn a few ass-kickings, but this one? This was charity work.

Susan Randle—radiant in a way that made heads turn in every hallway—sat beside me in the darkened movie theater. During what she half-jokingly called our “date” (really just two people sharing a row while an action film played), she eyed me with a mischievous smirk and accused me of being gay simply because I hesitated when she leaned over, voice low and daring, to ask if I wanted to “do it.” The dim light flickering over her face caught the earnest sparkle in her eyes before she suddenly closed the distance and pressed her lips against mine. In that charged moment, the unwritten, yet unanimously understood rule against “unsanctioned sugar”—the secret code dictating who could kiss whom—reared its head. No one ever seemed to grant an exception, whether you were a girl or a guy. And here I was, trapped between the dreaded labels: on one end lay the desperate horndog willing to prove his manhood at every twist, and on the other, the discredited possibility of being gay. I wasn’t interested in becoming just another name on her ever-growing list or dealing with the fallout of shattering her carefully constructed illusion of desirability. When a boy disrupted that illusion, the consequences were swift and ruthless.

That catalog wasn’t a myth—it was as real as the whispered rankings that circulated among us. It wasn’t enough to simply admire the “right” girl; if you dared to look away or, heaven forbid, question the unspoken challenges, your name was scrawled in the ledger of sins. Failed to laugh at the jokes delivered with just the right touch of irony, dress in conforming denim and sneakers, or walk with that practiced swagger? Sure enough, it was marked on the list.

My reluctance to follow these unwritten rules quickly made me a target. Over the following weeks, a series of meticulously scheduled beatings forced me to confront the cruel reality of teenage hierarchies. After school, I would find myself cornered in the deserted back lot behind the gym, where a group of boys awaited with grim determination. They’d shout derogatory names—“fairy boy” and a particular favorite, “pirate,” a crude truncation of “butt pirate”—words spat out with the casual cruelty of a rehearsed routine. Each blow landed with precision, and amid the sting and shock, I discovered a perverse sort of order; they made sure I wasn’t crippled for good. I clutched my prized 96 mph fastball as if it were a lifeline and leaned into my natural left-handed stance, determined to keep my place on the team even if I was labeled a “fairy boy” behind closed doors.

By the time the school year drew to a close, the beatings ceased as if a final judgment had been passed in some bizarre, secret rite of passage. One by one, the bullies patted me on the back with a mixture of grudging admiration and hollow platitudes, congratulating me on having “taken it like a man.” It was as if surviving their collective assault were the final exam in a twisted curriculum of manhood. They’d shrug and say, “It wasn’t personal. It was just something that needed doing.” To them, such senseless violence was nothing short of an honorable tradition—a sacred duty executed without a shred of genuine empathy.

That summer, I found brief refuge away from the tyranny of high school corridors with my father in Northern California. He was a truck driver, his bronzed, weathered hands as familiar with the hum of diesel engines as he was with the hard lines of a life lived outdoors, where emotions were as heavy as the cargo he hauled. My parents’ origins were a collage of chance encounters: they’d originally met at a sultry George Benson concert in the Midwest, where the guitar licks sultry under a neon haze had paved the way for something unexpected. Within nine months of that chance meeting, I came into the picture—a living reminder of their brief yet potent infatuation. They had the wisdom to avoid the charade of forced domesticity; soon after, my mom returned east while my dad continued chasing horizons out west. Mysterious fragments of half-truths and secrets that always belong to a larger narrative are as American as elitism and Chevrolets and need no full explanation.

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I used the prompts listed below in this bit of flash fiction

RDP – beast

Fandango – FWOC – Date