With Apologies to Lee Van Cleef

So the other day in the cafeteria Hank Mertens and Jose Gomez had a standoff.

See, Hank used to go out with Jose’s sister Mayra, but it ended badly at prom when she found Hank making out with Corinne Banks. Corinne was known as the school tramp, always hooking up with a bunch of guys, and that time at prom she got her claws into Hank. Well, Mayra broke up with Hank in the parking lot and called Jose to pick her up. That night he drove her over to Whataburger for a shake and to have her get in a good cry and shake Hank out of her system for good.

Jose knew he had to do right by his sister, especially since she was a senior and he was a junior. Hank was also a senior, and if Jose kicked his ass that would give him a reputation around campus as a badass. And he knew where Hank liked to sit at lunch in the cafeteria. So that other day, Jose approached that table with an apple in his hand. He finished eating lunch, which was a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a side of tater tots and chocolate milk, and the choice of pudding or an apple. Jose chose the apple because he knew he wanted to bean Hank Mertens in the head with a clean shot from a few feet away.

What Jose didn’t count on was a friend of Hank’s, Nathan Kramer, who knew about what happened at prom and had a feeling Jose was going to go after Hank. When Jose got closer to Hank’s table, Nathan made like he was taking his tray up to the back of the cafeteria. With a quick swipe of his left hand, Nathan knocked the apple out. Nathan also shook his tray so the plates could clatter as a sign for Hank to watch out.

Jose stood in front of Hank and stared at him. What did Mayra ever see in this guy, he thought, while he also pondered how best to pick up the apple to throw at Hank. But Hank also had a piece of fruit at his disposal, a pear. He held it in his hand and stroked it with his thumb, almost to tease Jose and to show he had the advantage.

Then Hank had an idea.

He pulled out his phone and through the music app brought up a song that he and Mayra liked. Jose knew about the song, so he knew that Hank decided to mess with him.

“So you know I gave your sister a huge hickey to this song, right?” Hank asked. Some of the other students in the cafeteria cleared out, as they sensed the electricity in the air that rolled into the air like a storm cloud before a fight broke out. This was between Jose and Hank, for Mayra’s honor. “If you want to try and kick my ass, when the song ends, try to throw that apple that’s on the ground at me. Then we’ll take it outside.”

Hank pressed play in the app, and the song started. Jose actually liked the song back when it first came out. But then his sister started going out with Hank, and whenever they were in her room they would play the song to mask their makeout sessions. Whenever they finished he would see Hank step out of her room with a slight hunch to mask the erection in his pants. Mayra made it a point to say how much she loved the song whenever they rode in their parents’ sedan if it ever played on the radio, as a way to tease her brother. She knew Jose didn’t like Hank for whatever reason. But if they only got a chance to really know each other, Mayra thought. They have a lot of things in common - they’re both Cowboys fans, they both like Spider-Man comic books and both had the same dream car in mind: a 1969 Chevy Camaro SS. Only thing is Jose wanted his to be dark blue, while Hank wanted it red.

Hank saw Jose’s eyes get sad. How did he get the drop on me, they seemed to say, and now I’m standing here while this jerk plays that dumb song. And he’s gonna bean me with that stupid pear. The apple was near his left foot. If only he could flick it with his foot either up so he can catch it and throw it, or kick it in the direction of Hank as a distraction and run behind it so he can get in a couple of punches. What to do, what to do?

The song got past the guitar solo and into the repeat of the second verse before the chorus and outro. The outro was a jam session among the session musicians and ended with a cymbal crash. Hank looked at Jose and knew he had the upper hand. Once that cymbal crash came in, that was his cue to sling that pear at Jose’s head, and to finish kicking his butt outside in the quad area.

The singer finished singing the chorus, and the outro jam started. Jose felt a tightness to his stomach. He had that same tightness back in fifth grade before he got into a fight with Chris Ellsworth over who got to sit next to Michelle Russell at lunch. They both thought she was cute. When Chris threw the first punch, it hit Jose on the left cheek. The boys who formed a circle around them uttered an “ooh!” that was meant to encourage a return punch from Jose. Which he did, then he hit Chris again with a hard punch to the nose. When the assistant principal Mrs. Duran showed up, there was a wet maroon patch of dirt in the playground as Chris Ellsworth held his nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Jose stood there with a clenched fist and a guilty look as the rest of the boys ran away just as the bell rang.

Now years later, that same tightness came up as the beautiful noise of the guitar, bass, and drums flew into the cafeteria air like a flock of sparrows flittering around the treetops. Hank tightened his grip on the pear. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the red dot marching across the line toward the time remaining part of the music app screen. Just a few more seconds, and Gomez is gonna get a pear to the eye.

Just as the last guitar notes floated into the air and the cymbal crash became imminent, Jose and Hank heard the song repeat itself.

It was Jose’s friend Chuck Tanner, one of his best friends outside of school, who played the same song on his phone. He and Jose bonded first over basketball before they got into skateboarding. They were tight, and if either one was in a moment of trouble, the other one would jump in if needed. Chuck held his phone up, the volume at full blast, as the song started its outro again from the new phone.

Chuck looked at Hank. He didn’t like him either. Plus, Chuck had a huge crush on Mayra, so knowing that Hank was with her also didn’t sit well with him. Chuck reached into his backpack and gave Jose a grapefruit. Then he stood over to Jose’s left and continued to hold the phone up as the song resumed another visit to the outro.

Hank loosened his grip on the pear slightly. Now it was two against one. What were they planning to do, his eyes asked as they studied Jose with a firm grip on the grapefruit, Chuck with a sneer and the phone up to his shoulder, the outro coming to an end…

The cymbal crash came just as Jose threw the grapefruit and hit Hank square on the nose. Pieces of the ripe grapefruit flew in different directions and a little bit of citric acid got into Hank’s right eye.

“Ow!” he yelped. Jose and Chuck walked up to him.

“So, you want to take this outside?” Jose asked, his hands balled up into fists, his stomach tight. Chuck had his backpack by one strap on his shoulder, ready to let it slide off should he be needed to jump into the fight.

Hank rubbed his eye.

“I’m half blind!” he yelled at Jose, as the campus security came into the cafeteria.

“What’s going on here?” Ernest the campus cop asked. He had on the same John Deere trucker cap and Members Only jacket that he always wore, even if it was boiling hot outside during the late spring.

“Nothing,” Jose and Hank said in unison.

“Yeah, nothing,” Chuck said and adjusted the backpack strap on his shoulder.

“Okay,” Ernest replied and eyed all three boys. “I don’t want to see any fights on campus, understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they replied.

“Stay away from Mayra,” Jose said. “Or I’ll make sure to really blind you if try anything funny.”

“Yeah,” Chuck added. Jose gave him a quick glance. He had this under control.

“Okay, okay,” Hank said. “Besides, I’m with Corinne Banks now. We’re good.”

“Okay then,” Jose said. He loosened up his fists slightly and walked out of the cafeteria with Chuck.