At Indian Springs Memorial, Mr. Glazer had been a gym teacher for over twenty years. He might have been in his fifties but maybe older. We middle school kids lacked an ability to differentiate any adult’s age past what seemed young. The man could have been seventy but who knew. He wore khaki shorts, no matter the time of year or weather, and tight school-issued polos, causing a man’s face, a Native American man, who was our school’s mascot, to blob. Unbuttoned at the top of the polos, white and black chest hairs wrestled out of the open collars. He just looked like a gym teacher, like an older adult with an aged body, like his belly that distended and extended over his belt buckle. But like any middle school gym teacher who was trying to hoard a pack of hyenas-like kids, Mr. Glazer ran a tight shift. His large palm gripped a corded stopwatch. He timed us, ten minutes to change in the locker room. He’d bark orders like a drill sergeant, “let’s go, boys and girls!” The cord holding the stopwatch was almost hidden, lost in the rolls of thick neck and beard. His face ballooned, and he blew an orange whistle. We were accustomed to its trill, frightened by it. We tunneled into each locker room. x

Mr. Glazer favored athletes. He tended to them with extra care. During gym class, if their jump shot was a little off, he’d strut over to the half court line, his sneakers squeaking, and demonstrate how to do it. “Square your feet and shoulders.” Mr. Glazer would position himself, inches away. “Palm the ball. Right hand here.” He’d place the kid’s hand near the base of the ball. “Left hand cups the side.” He’d move that hand too. “Bend your knees.” The kid would bend them. “Good,” Mr. Glazer would say, and maybe he’d rest one of his hairy hands on the kid’s shoulder, “Now, release,” and Mr. Glazer would hover, an oversized body closing in on a smaller body, a kid’s body—and how the man breathed loudly and how we knew he was close to us. And that kid, always a boy, would do as he were told and would unbend his knees, extend his two arms, and release that ball to the basket, “swish,” and somehow, it seemed, whenever Mr. Glazer helped us do something, we never got it wrong, that we always got it right with him around. 

Before gym class started, he demanded a five-minute time restraint for getting changed into while in the locker room. Our uniform was a pair of black shorts and a green shirt. Some boys, the athletic ones who Mr. Glazer liked the most, the ones who bullied other kids but got away with it, excitedly chatted about the activity for the day, Glazer Ball, a dodgeball-esique game we played every Friday—a game created and named after Mr. Glazer. And those boys, with arms like cannons, planned which kids they’d target, which kids they’d intentionally “get out”, which kids who had faces like bullseyes, and those kids were on their hit lists. And whichever blonde-haired boy who was shirtless and proud of it, pointed his finger at another kid whose arms were still stuck and wiggling from out his shirt. The blonde-haired boy, like a younger Commodus, pointed his thumb down, and said to the boy who was writhing about, “you’re next, Chubs.”

The other boys, like “Chubs,” who were not excited about playing Glazer Ball and whose eyes were shielded behind glasses and whose voices were high, pitchy, and shaky—those boys said nothing much, just quickly undressed out of their school clothes behind the door of an open locker. They hid their bodies, not to be ridiculed again because they were always too skinny or because they were just too chubby—because they were whichever adolescent wrong-with-you, or because, on the rare occasion, their skin, like mine, was different. These boys changed into their uniforms anxiously, with the trepidation about being hit with a rubber ball in the face or in the groin on a Friday. 

I was neither the boys planning their hit lists nor the boys who were often toppled by the onslaught of red rubber balls. I was in the middle of cool and uncool. I was like those boys in the locker room, but I wasn’t. I was different from all of them, all those kids in the entire gymnasium. I was more like the Native American man whose brown face was embroidered on our gym uniforms. However, there were no Native Americans now in Indian Springs, just their names, like ghosts—names imprinted on our street signs, on our schools, on our mascots, like that Native American man, heroic in a headdress, who was on display throughout Indian Springs Memorial. 

I was an Other, like the Native American man, whom we often called Geronimo or Squanto or some other name that we thought sounded Native American. In the locker room positioned above all the lockers, his caramel-colored face looked on, as if some last attempt by an administrator to watch us, and he watched us, omnisciently, like he was saying—I know what you do in here. I know how you treat each other. I know you are not brothers. If a real man, he was uncommon as I was, for I was the only kid of color and what my classmates knew about kids or people of color, for that matter, was as much and as little as they knew about Native Americans—that we, both Black and brown, were just a thing they’d recognize from a History book, from a television—or from the occasional other kid of color who also went through our school, whose name they had forgotten by now but remembered only that—he was a damn good athlete. 

Instead of playing sports well, I spent most of my afternoons reading comics, drawing, writing stories—not dribbling, throwing, running, or catching. Maybe this was just my perception, a self-perceived complex because I wanted to be that kid I thought my peers wanted me to be. The kid who they assumed was naturally athletic—because Black people run fast; Black people jump high; Black people can catch; I wanted to be picked first on whatever team because I guaranteed a win for any and every game we played. But that wasn’t me, and my insecurity for not fulfilling that stereotype manifested itself into something else. I hid my lack of athleticism by being something else—by being an attention-seeker, by being comic relief, by being the clown, the misbehaved, the bad kid in class. I thought no one would target me, like those other boys, if I could make them laugh, could surprise them, could be the consistent, “Can you believe what Davon did today?” My antics built a reputation regardless if it were Friday or any other day in gym class.

I misbehaved in a lot of ways. When doing jumping jacks during warm-ups, I’d do them without effort, mismatch my legs, jump off-sync from the rest of the class. When doing sit-ups, I’d pretend to fart, orchestrate loud noises from my mouth, point to some other kid who looked innocent, who I said did it. When running laps around the perimeter, I did cartwheels or performed the Moonwalk. When playing basketball, because everyone thought I was good, I played the opposite and shot baskets underhand, the Grandma Shot, and intentionally missed. That list of misbehaviors included not participating in activities, following directions, and being late for class. But regardless of what I was doing, I was choosing to be a nuisance because I wasn’t the athlete my peers thought I was or the one I wanted to be—that I couldn’t dodge balls or throw them like the other kids who had planned their attack—that I really was more like those boys who hid behind their lockers, that easily, the harassment could turn on me, a skinny, four-eyed, brown-skinned boy, if I didn’t perform, if I wasn’t the funny Black kid.

After changing and exiting the locker room, we stood in alphabetical lines. As if he was more excited than we were for the day’s activity, Mr. Glazer eagerly called our last names to record attendance. He’d travel to and fro, high fiving his favorites boys, and those boys would return the gesture but jeer at each other after Mr. Glazer walked away. We knew something was off about the man—something that unsettled us, but kids will be kids, and our ignorance just turned into humor—saying things like, “Glazer likes you, dude. You’re next,” but we didn’t understand what we said, didn’t understand what “being next” really meant. But Mr. Glazer favored those boys—so what if he was a closer-talker? They received special treatment. They could, as they said, “peg a ball at some dweeb’s face and get away with it.” 

We were never allowed to be late for Line Attendance, and if we were, Mr. Glazer did the following after blowing his whistle: reprimand us in front of the entire gym class, make us run extra laps, assign us a lunch detention, or a combination of all three. Those were his rules, and his most important rule, the one he harped on day after day was, “try your best.” He’d shout that phrase at any kid with lackluster performance, even if the kid just was bad at the sport or exercise. “Try your best,” the man would howl, and then hustle his way over to whichever kid it was and show them. Mr. Glazer would say, “I practice what I preach,” and the man did; he was an athlete, too, though, he didn’t look like it. He could shoot a basketball from anywhere on the court with dexterity. He could swing a wiffle bat like an MLB slugger, the plastic ball whistling and soaring towards the opposite side of the gymnasium when hit. He could show us each and every move he wanted us to then perform. But if we didn’t—didn’t try our best or didn’t follow his strict set of rules—if we didn’t appease his interest, we were his enemy. I was his enemy. 

Because being on time for Line Attendance was so important, I’d arrive in my spot, M through Ls, at the nick of time—just enough time to not really be late but still piss him off, get a good laugh and not get in trouble. He’d stand there with his whistle anchored between his coffee-stained teeth, ready to blow. He watched the analog clock on the wall while walking and checking names. Boys and girls hustled to their lines. The cork ball trembled, like it too, knew what was going to happen. I exited the locker room last. I had maybe thirty seconds to get in my spot. Mr. Glazer watched me, and his angry eyes pierced through me. I smiled, showing the glint of my braces and a glimmer of the fluorescent lights shone on my glasses. I did a little dance, a one-two step shuffle, a crisscross spin, a raise-the-roof. My classmates, standing in their lines, laughed contagiously in various octaves. My thirty seconds were up. The whistle blew.  

That stout and burly man breathed deeply into the whistle’s mouth; he breathed as if resuscitating it, the whistle. The trill was ear-piercing. At this point, I knew I was bound for trouble, so why not be funnier? I Moonwalked towards my line. The trill ended, just an echo. Mr. Glazer inhaled, his chest rising like a bear, and then exhaled deep. And this time, the cork ball could have exploded. In the commotion, the other kids, still in their lines, laughed so loudly that the laughter began to drown out the trill. Mr. Glazer blew his whistle even harder, his face completely red. I pretended to do the robot dance, fueling the comedy. Hysterics were all around. And then, like the bear that he was, Mr. Glazer charged towards me.

Mr. Glazer was only a couple inches taller than me. He squared his bouldering shoulders in front of mine, an act of intimidation. He was a beast, heavy-footed and almost on me. His polo shirt stretched to the girth of his body’s changes, how the anger seemed to enlarge his muscles, his bones—how he was inflamed with such rage. Almost face to face, he said with his booming voice, “On the bleachers, now, Loeb.” All the kids stopped laughing. They looked at Mr. Glazer and me like they were watching a car accident. His thick finger, maybe inches from my face, targeted me and then directed it to the bleachers. He said I couldn’t participate in Glazer Ball, that I would be losing points on my grade for not participating and be in more trouble for insubordination. I shrugged and scoffed. I thought I was a tough kid, but my heart was in panic. I pretended to be unphased by this man who was very, very angry, a man against a child, and it looked like he wanted to hurt me. But I answered with a head nod and marched to the bleachers where, like on a time-out, would watch the game of Glazer Ball. I sat, with my legs stretched across the bleachers. The Native American man, painted and enlarged on the cement wall, watched above me. 

What was not apparent in my carefree attitude was my relief to not play Glazer Ball, and not just because I knew Mr. Glazer was a creep, but also because I didn’t want to get ridiculed. Though kids rarely picked on me, there were still some who would try and “hit the Black kid if he wasn’t funny enough, if he didn’t dance good enough, if he didn’t perform for us.” So, as an extra precaution, I was as bad as possible during gym and especially on Fridays when we played Glazer Ball. Unlike the other kids who were bullied in the gymnasium, the kids who were more afraid of getting in trouble than of being hurt and humiliated during Glazer Ball, I attempted the latter; I retreated. And the boys who Mr. Glazer watched from the sideline intently, I evaded his gaze. Mr. Glazer blew his whistle, lightly, and the game began. 

Teamwork was essential to playing Glazer Ball. During the game, kids were split into four groups, and the goal was to be the last team standing. Each team wore different colored pinnies and started with two red rubber balls. To win, they’d need to get the other team out by throwing rubber balls at the opposing players, either below the hip or catching a ball being thrown at you. The rules were not to throw above the hip, especially to the face, but Mr. Glazer could only watch so many kids at once. And for the kids hurling the balls the hardest and the fastest, enjoyed, most of all, pegging balls at faces and groanings. Mr. Glazer never seemed to notice any of the intentional targeting of other students. He praised the kids who won, the kids who preyed on what seemed to be the weaker ones, by awarding the winners with paper printouts of “Athlete of the Week”. 

The class lined up, boys and girls clustered together. Mr. Glazer went to each kid and counted them off. Some said “yes” after receiving their number and jogged to their appropriate group. Mr. Glazer was still boiling from reprimanding me and paid little attention to whether kids were going in their assigned groups. While the majority of the excitement of the game came from the boys, some girls were eager to throw balls at other girls they didn’t like; dweebies they called them. The boys didn’t discriminate between gender and would hurl a ball equally as hard at a boy or a girl. But hitting boys “in the balls with the balls” was the best.

Before the game began, Mr. Glazer turned on the gymnasium’s sound system, pressed play on the CD-player, and turned up music, something from one of the Now That’s What I Call Music compilation albums, probably NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” because whenever a kid got another kid out, someone sang, “Bye, bye, bye.” While the music played, Mr. Glazer placed four mesh bags around the gymnasium floor. He then walked around to each group and gave them two balls. A blonde-haired kid held a ball and slapped it with his other hand. He glared from group to group, acquiring his targets. And then, Mr. Glazer blew his whistle, and immediately, balls fired—some were rockets, some were wobbling eggs. It was obvious which groups sent which balls. There was that one kid, who was larger than all the other kids and who had the onset beard growing, performed a shot putters’ spin; his ball soared into a group of lanky-looking kids who were trying to hide on the gymnasium’s perimeters. He knocked them all down like bowling pins.

Kids dropped quickly, almost all the teams were sidelined. The gymnasium’s perimeters now held clusters of kids who sat cross-legged and were no longer worried about getting pegged with a ball. They waited for the game. Other teams cheered on their classmates.  “Bye Bye Bye” was replaced by some other song. Balls littered the now empty spaces. Two teams were battling for victory. One of the teams had all boys and the other had two girls and a boy. Balls soared. A kid caught one, a kid dropped one, a boy was walloped in the crotch, and he groaned something fierce.

At the end of the game, Mr. Glazer turned the music off and told us to run a lap. I was bored and still sitting on the bleachers. He turned to face me and said, “Loeb, go run.” I skipped off the bleachers with the same shrug and aloof attitude. This time, I did as I was told. I was ready for the class period to be over. The Glazer Ball winners didn’t have to run. They sat on the bottom of the bleachers and strutted like a muster of peacocks. Mr. Glazer blew his whistle and circled his finger. We ran. The boys on the bleachers shouted for us to run faster, and they shoulder-bumped, and they whispered things to each other while pointing to some kids who had been targeted by the red rubber balls, whose skin was still welted and puffy.

We ran for about five minutes. Mr. Glazer blew his final whistle for us to change. It was such a relief, and kids rushed to change. I started for the locker room with the other kids when Mr. Glazer shouted at me, “Get your stuff, Loeb. Get changed in my office bathroom.” Other kids knew what this meant, and some had been there before—and those boys cringed. I absolutely did not want to get changed in his office bathroom, again. I pretended to ignore him and continued jogging. His voice followed me, “Loeb, office bathroom. Get your stuff.” I didn’t have much of a choice. If I didn’t get changed in his office bathroom, I’d be penalized even more—be forced to get changed in there for the rest of the week. Hell, I didn’t care about losing points or another lunch detention, I just didn’t want to be in there. Something about it seemed wrong, and there was nothing I could do about it. 

I opened the heavy locker room door, and some boys said, “Ohhhh.” They knew what was happening. Everyone joked about it—about why I or one of us was in there and what Mr. Glazer would do. I collected my duffle bag, left the locker room, and hustled to his office to get it over with. He waited in front of the office door, his hairy arms crossed, the veins in his forearms bulging, and his demands were met. We walked into his office; I drifted a few steps behind him, trying to keep some distance. He unlocked his private office bathroom with the key attached to his lanyard that was clipped to one of his belt loops. This was a punishment he saved for only some of us. I never considered the inappropriateness of it. He was an adult, and I was a kid. Mr. Glazer, instead of sending me or any of the misbehaved to the principal’s office or calling home to our parents, handled discipline himself. He said, “You will follow my rules.” I don’t know if he targeted me because I was the only Black kid in class. I don’t know if he was actually racist—that he wanted to single-out the already singled-out Black kid. Maybe my race had nothing to do with it. Maybe I was just a punk ass kid. Maybe he knew I knew that he was creep—that I was on to him and that why’s I misbehaved so much. 

I don’t remember how many of us were forced to change in there, some were white but mostly just me. But I do remember that bathroom—I remember how clean it was, how the toilet seat was always down and never spotted with some kid’s urine like the normal boys’ bathroom—I remember how cold the linoleum floor was on my socks; I remember the lock on the door, how I’d stare at it, hoping if I stared long enough that it wouldn’t unlock, that he would never come in. There is something deeply frightening about being watched, and I was deeply frightened. I changed as fast as I could, almost tripping over my pants every time—almost panicking and rushing out of there without changing at all. With no locker to hide behind, Mr. Glazer, unlike those boys who bullied other boys in the locker room, was actually dangerous, and I was in danger, and I felt it, and I knew it—and if I listened close enough, I think I could hear him. 

Mr. Glazer never unlocked that door to the bathroom, and yet still, his shadow stood there, and it waited, and it loomed—and when I turned the door handle, Mr. Glazer was always gone.