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victory.
    When we arrived, the gym was packed with most every Culver Creek student—I noticed, for instance, the Creek’s three goth girls reapplying their eyeliner as they sat on the top row of the gym’s bleachers. I’d never attended a school basketball game back home, but I doubted the crowds there were quite so inclusive. Even so, I was surprised when none other than Kevin Richman sat down on the bleacher directly in front of me while the opposing school’s cheerleading team (their unfortunate school colors were mud-brown and dehydrated-piss-yellow) tried to fire up the small visitors’ section in the crowd. Kevin turned around and stared at the Colonel.
    Like most of the other guy Warriors, Kevin dressed preppy, looking like a lawyer-who-enjoys-golfing waiting to happen. And his hair, a blond mop, short on the sides and spiky on top, was always soaked through with so much gel that it looked perennially wet. I didn’t hate him like the Colonel did, of course, because the Colonel hated him on principle, and principled hate is a hell of a lot stronger than “Boy, I wish you hadn’t mummified me and thrown me into the lake” hate. Still, I tried to stare at him intimidatingly as he looked at the Colonel, but it was hard to forget that this guy had seen my skinny ass in nothing but boxers a couple weeks ago.
    “You ratted out Paul and Marya. We got you back. Truce?” Kevin asked.
    “I didn’t rat them out. Pudge here
certainly
didn’t rat them out, but you brought him in on your fun. Truce? Hmm, let me take a poll real quick.” The cheerleaders sat down, holding their pom-poms close to their chest as if praying. “Hey, Pudge,” the Colonel said. “What do you think of a truce?”
    “It reminds me of when the Germans demanded that the U.S. surrender at the Battle of the Bulge,” I said. “I guess I’d say to this truce offer what General McAuliffe said to that one: Nuts.”
    “Why would you try to kill this guy, Kevin? He’s a genius. Nuts to your truce.”
    “Come on, dude. I know you ratted them out, and we had to defend our friend, and now it’s over. Let’s end it.” He seemed very sincere, perhaps due to the Colonel’s reputation for pranking.
    “I’ll make you a deal. You pick one dead American president. If Pudge doesn’t know that guy’s last words, truce. If he does, you spend the rest of your life lamenting the day you pissed in my shoes.”
    “That’s retarded.”
    “All right, no truce,” the Colonel shot back.
    “Fine. Millard Fillmore,” Kevin said. The Colonel looked at me hurriedly, his eyes saying,
Was that guy a president?
I just smiled.
    “When Fillmore was dying, he was super hungry. But his doctor was trying to starve his fever or whatever. Fillmore wouldn’t shut up about wanting to eat, though, so finally the doctor gave him a tiny teaspoon of soup. And all sarcastic, Fillmore said, ‘The nourishment is palatable,’ and then died. No truce.”
    Kevin rolled his eyes and walked away, and it occurred to me that I could have made up any last words for Millard Fillmore and Kevin probably would have believed me if I’d used that same tone of voice, the Colonel’s confidence rubbing off on me.
    “That was your first badass moment!” The Colonel laughed. “Now, it’s true that I gave you an easy target. But still. Well done.”

    Unfortunately for the Culver Creek Nothings, we weren’t playing the deaf-and-blind school. We were playing some Christian school from downtown Birmingham, a team stocked with huge, gargantuan apemen with thick beards and a strong distaste for turning the other cheek.
    At the end of the first quarter: 20–4.
    And that’s when the fun started. The Colonel led all of the cheers.
    “Cornbread!” he screamed.
    “CHICKEN!” the crowd responded.
    “Rice!”
    “PEAS!”
    And then, all together: “WE GOT HIGHER SATs.”
    “Hip Hip Hip Hooray!” the Colonel cried.
    “YOU’LL BE WORKIN’ FOR US SOMEDAY!”
    The opposing team’s