Black, White, and Gray

By Inaecis

John Snow is my best friend.

John. His name is so easy to say. Not like Jacob.

John. It's a simple name, quick to say, because he's quick to help, quick to speak up, quick to respond. He is a simple guy. Not like me.

Jacob Ethan Sterninlich that's my name. It's hard, cutting. It was as if some long dead ancestor had picked random sounds and threaded them together. None of my teachers ever pronounced it properly, but I never corrected them. If I did, it wouldn't accomplish anything, and I could foresee the stares of my classmates as they judged me while I tried to teach them how to say it.

I kept my silence

But that was me: I always thought of the consequences, unlike John. He never quieted down simply because someone might beat him up for saying the things he did. He did things because they felt good, and because they felt right. If he saw something he didn't like, he would do something about it, while I hid in the corner.

I don't understand how we found each other in the beginning of high school. We saw things so differently; it just seemed we were natural foils. And yet, out of a crowd of a thousand, John picked me to be his best friend. Did I look like I could stand up to anyone like he did? I think he knew from the start that I would not be of any help in his search to rid the world of "stupid asses." But I guess opposites attract, because we became friends. Maybe he was trying to teach me something about the world and how he saw it.

"Look at Alex—stupid ass," he said to me once while we were riding the bus home, his hands shaking with what anyone else might see as fear. But I knew it was anger. John was fearless.

His attention was aimed at a beast of junior, in our grade, who had a lighter in his hand and was flicking it on and off dangerously close to a sophomore's head. The sophomore laughed, but his blonde, buzz-cut head shook. He turned towards me for a second, and noticed that his smile seemed counterfeit, and his eyes were wide with fear. I made a joke, something about his throaty laugh sounding like the mating call of a moose.

He didn't seem to have heard me. "I want to kill him. Where does he get off?"

I began making excuses for Alex, the bully, the "Bad Guy," in the hopes that John wouldn't do anything that would get us killed. I knew that he was seconds away from assaulting Alex. I reminded him what happened the last time he tried to punch someone who was being a "stupid ass." Detention for a week, and he was lucky for that little. It was because the teacher who had punished him liked him so much. He spoke his mind, without thinking about the repercussions for doing so. All of the teachers praised his courage. I envied him.

I had tried once to speak my mind during English class. We were reading The Crucible and I attempted to voice an unconventional answer. But it seemed that everything I said was wrong, and the girls sitting behind me giggled and the boys imitated my stammering.

That was the last time I tried.

Now, I think about everything I say, everything I do, before I do it. I would rather save myself the embarrassment and be taciturn than face the ridicule of my peers.

But not John. He wouldn't take my "crap" about how Alex was probably too stupid to really understand what he was doing. He wouldn't listen when I told him that Alex would be getting off the bus soon. He never backed down from anything.

"Come on, we can kick his ass tomorrow," I pleaded, hoping he would have cooled off by then.

He looked at me as if I was the crazy one. "No! We get him now or we don't get him!" Black or white.

I shrunk back into my seat. It was all so easy for him to decide what was right and what was wrong. My mind was filled with the consequences of what would happen and empathy for a bully who might possibly have a reason for acting the way he did. My mind was useless and clouded, and those decisions between black and white were confused. I could only see in shades of gray.

Two seats in front of us, Alex, oblivious to John's volatile disposition, was holding the lighter close to a junior's long, curly hair. "So much hairspray," he chuckled to the sophomore beside him, the one whose head he had almost lit on fire moments before. "It would go up like this!" He snapped his fingers.

John emitted what sounded like a low growl. I would have laughed if his expression didn't scare me so much. He leaned forward and kicked Alex's hand, and the lighter went flying into the front rows of the bus.

"What the ?" Alex turned his bulky head to see John standing there, 100 pounds lighter and the most formidable opponent he had ever crossed.

"What the hell goes through your head?" John hissed, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

"Yo' man, just havin' some fun," he replied, a glint of some feeling that I could not identify appearing in his eyes. In the whole three months we had been riding the bus with Alex, this was the first time I saw something besides cockiness in his expression. "No need to get all pissy." I recognized it in myself. It was fear.

The bus slowed as Alex fumbled for words that weren't there. John stood, ready to take the first hit, and rebound with his own. But Alex would not strike. They were David and Goliath in a staring contest, and Goliath was losing ground fast. Alex's hand groped for his bag and the bus jerked to a halt. This was not his stop, but he shuffled off the bus.

John grinned at the sophomore when the bus began moving again. Then he looked at me and laughed. "Look at that," he said. "He was scared. The big wimp."

He sat back down in his seat and didn't mention the incident again.

The next day I went to school feeling as if the day before could have ended much differently. I couldn't believe Alex had backed down so easily. John had been right: he really was a wimp. I laughed to myself and couldn't wait until sixth period so I could tell John how intimidated Alex had looked.

It wasn't until the ambulance had left that I heard what happened.

Alex had gathered a group of similarly wimpy bullies, and he had approached John in the hallway. Smiling, John had undoubtedly insulted Alex, ready to take any punches he would throw. But Alex's buddies had grabbed him from behind, knocking his head into a wall and holding him while Alex pummeled him.

Bullies, it just so happens, do not like to be made a fool of. This was a coward's revenge.

I remember thinking that I hadn't even been there to help him, though now I wonder if I really would have had the guts to dive into a crowd of five angry football players.

John had no chance in the hallway. None of his teachers had come to help him. They would probably say they couldn't hear what was happening, but I know the truth. They were too afraid. Too afraid, even for their best student. Would I be too afraid, even for my best friend?

But I end up here on the bus again. When I get home, my parents will take me to see John. He still has not woken up, so until he does the police will have to wait to know the names of his assailants. Because no one had witnessed it, or because they were too afraid to come forward. But they might believe me when I tell them who did it and why. It was Alex, I will tell them, and it was because John spoke his mind and was ready to defend his words.

And here I am, where it started. Alex leans over to a sophomore sitting across from him, and slaps him on the side of the head.

"W-why did you do that?" The sophomore asks, terror mixed with anger in his eyes.

Alex eyes him with contempt. "Because you're a sophomore, and I don't like you. You gonna do anything about it?"

The sophomore breaks away from Alex's stare and looks at his feet, his muscles tense. It was submission. He would do nothing in his defense.

I look down and realize that my hands are shaking as adrenaline rushes through my veins. I can no longer feel the sense of dread and foreboding in the pit of my stomach. This is what John must have felt when he stood up for himself, when he spoke his mind. I knew that I had to be there when he woke up, to tell him that my vision was no longer cloudy gray, overshadowed by worry. I had to tell him I was seeing in black and white.

Alex laughs at his own superiority, and my anger reaches its apex.

I stand up.