Free We Were Brothers by Barry Moser Page A

Tommy nor I was immune to these kinds of cruelties, but they befell us less often than they did some of the other boys, especially the ones considered odd or strange for one reason or another. I was more or less accepted into the clan because I accepted the established pecking order and I wasn’t a wiseass—and perhaps because my fear of the bigger boys was mistaken for respect.
    I was a short, chubby kid. Tommy was a tall, skinny kid. But apparently neither of us came across as being funny looking—a condition that was a certain invitation to abuse. I think that Tommy’s being older probably played a part in his being mostly excluded from the assaults, but for whatever reason, we Mosers suffered the humiliation of being put off that bus half-naked on Brainerd Road less than some.
    When Tommy was in the tenth grade, his last year at Baylor, he was attacked on the way home. And who knows if this incident contributed to his making that decision or not? It was a Wednesday afternoon, and since neither of us were on varsity athletic teams we were free to catch the 4:00 bus that left campus right after inspection and go home. The early bus did not take us back to the point where it picked us up but made a straight shot east on McCallie Avenue, through the Missionary Ridge tunnels, and then went straight down Brainerd Road, stopping at designated stops to let boys off at whatever point was most convenient for them. We usually got off at either Seminole Drive or at Tunnel Boulevard and walked the mile and a half home.
    This day Tommy, as always, was in his meticulously groomed and polished dress uniform. I remember that it was spring and we were in our white dress pants. Tommy was accosted just before we got to the tunnels. Those tunnels, unlike the tunnel through Stringer’s Ridge, are long, and going east there is a slight grade. The old International Harvester was chugging along slowly and dutifully, and by the time we came out into the light at the other end Tommy had been stripped of his blouse, his pants, and his shirt and tie. At the next stop he was physically put off the bus. He stood there in his underwear watching his pants dangling out of a bus window. They dropped to the street along with his wool blouse and polished Sam Browne belt just as the bus shifted into first gear and continued on its way.
    Given Tommy’s penchant for grooming and his growing hatred for Baylor and the boys in it, he must have been hurt, indignant, and convulsed with rage. I did not get off the bus with him. I stayed on and got off at the next stop and walked home alone. I didn’t want to be with him after that. I didn’t want to give him the chance to take it out on me. I hated seeing him treated that way, but on the other hand I did take a little bit of enjoyment seeing him bullied.
    EARLY IN MY SOPHOMORE year a funny-looking seventh grader playfully slapped me upside the head in the brief darkness of Stringer’s Ridge tunnel. He was a short, fat kid who had an unruly head of black hair that grew down his forehead, terminating in the neighborhood of his eyebrows. He wore thick Coke-bottle glasses. Obviously he did not understand the hierarchical dynamics at play when he slapped me. I was in a bad mood because the juniors and seniors in the back of the bus wouldn’t let me sit with them and it was the first year that Tommy wasn’t on the bus with me, though I don’t know what that might have to do with anything. Anyway, I hauled off and slapped him back. I slapped him
hard
. Really hard. Hard enough to break the bridge of his thick, black, horn-rimmed glasses.
    As soon as he got off the bus he reported me, and rightfully so. First period had just begun when I was summoned to the commandant’s office. I stood at rigid, chin-tucked attention while he upbraided me for responding to that innocent, playful act with such undueness. I was a cadet corporal when I went into the commandant’s office, but I left it a cadet private—the same