Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: Phil Hester, The Plan and The Fight

Let’s face it, 95% of comic fans know Phil Hester as the guy that drew Kevin Smith’s Green Arrow story. Whereas that’s probably a good place to get introduced to Phil Hester, not many people realize that he is without a doubt one of the most talented and prolific writers in comics today and not just a guy that draws really pretty pictures. Do yourself a favor; get acquainted with the writings of Phil Hester. For past material, I suggest picking up The Coffin, The Wretch Volume I and Volume II and Firebreather Volume 1. Then tell your LCS to order up some copies of The Atheist from Image Comics and Desperado Publishing. And finally, when you’re done reading all these great Phil Hester stories, pick up a copy of Western Tales of Terror #2, featuring a great story by Phil (one of my three favorite stories we published so far).

I realized that I never mentioned the intention of this blog when a friend the other day told me I was going to run out of stories eventually. So, in case you’re interested, my plan is to do this for a little over a year (until Feb ’06) and then assess if I have enough stories left to do another year. It was my original intention to sort of use the blog format to effectively write a book. I post 1-2 pages a day for 260 days we’re looking at a 300-and-change page novel. Not bad for a year. After a year I’m probably going to change the pace a bit. I’ve been in DC for almost six years, dating Robin for almost seven years and trying to break into the comics industry for almost a year and a half and I really haven’t told any of those stories yet. I think it’s a great challenge though, to blog a novel of sorts. But that’s the way I’m approaching it. Believe it or not, there is a plotline that’s running through this, there’s an ultimate point to all these stories and what they’re leading up to. So, thanks for sticking with it this far and I hope some of the faithful stick with it further. And, when I hire an editor to clean it up, I add some new content and sell it in book form, thanks, in advance, for buying it.

Yesterday’s story sort of got me thinking about what I consider to be the greatest fight of all time. The fight wasn’t particularly exciting but when you look at the circumstances behind it, it’s the kind of fight you just would have never expected to see.

I talked a bit about PS 58, a predominantly Italian elementary school. Back when I went there, it was close to 99.9% white. There were a few Latinos, a few African Americans and a couple of Asians. My grade had one black guy, Charles Jeray Barr (He went by Charles in elementary school and Jeray in Junior High School). Since this story takes place in elementary school, we’ll call him Charles.

Charles was one of my better friends growing up. I was in his class from Kindergarten straight through to the sixth grade. He was just a friendly guy, always smiling, always laughing, just inviting as all hell. He was in one corner of the fight, one of the only black kids in our school and the only black kid in my grade (to put it into perspective, each grade had about 120 kids).

I talked about Xam a few times. Xam was my good friend since the second grade and he even lives in DC now, we’ve remained friends throughout our years. Xam had a twin brother, Ayli. They were the only twins in the whole school and most likely the only Germans and laid claim to a last name no one could pronounce, Scharrenbroich.

As if the twin/German thing wasn’t enough to set them apart at my school, they were also freaks of a sort. In the fourth grade Xam came into school with the left side of his head completely shaved and Ayli came in with the right side of his head completely shaved. This was probably one of their tamer stunts but easily their most memorable. They were in the other corner, the only twins in our school with opposite sides of their heads completely shaved.

I don’t even know how the fight started. I think Charles tripped one of them or something, I’m pretty sure it started with Xam. But Charles and Xam started going at it and the small and frail Xam was no problem for the genetically muscular and much larger Charles. Charles was literally tossing Xam around.

And then we heard this screech. Ayli has the tendency to do this high pitched screech as a joke but he apparently lets it out when he fight as well. In one swift motion we see Ayli fly through the air and grapple onto Charles’ back. Xam takes his brother’s lead and starts working Charles face and body.

But Charles didn’t give up. He tossed Ayli off his back and once again threw Xam. One brother at a time lunged at Charles and one brother at a time they were tossed across the school yard. Charles held his own, warding off his twin attackers until the fight was broken up by Mrs. Gambino (aka Torpedo Tits).

The fight will always be amazing to me. Any other combination of combatants would have been nothing more than your typical school yard fight. But two people so distinctly different to the rest of the school's population - that was something memorable.

To sort of give an example of the mentality of the school kids, however, I have to add that the many of the white kids gathered around the fight and began chanting the well known school yard poem:

A fight, a fight, a nigger and a white,
The white turns red and the nigger drops dead!

I have so much respect for Charles. I tell stories about the people I had to deal with and the relationship between thugs and non-thugs and friends choosing sides and turning against you, robbing you at gunpoint. Red Hook/Carroll Gardens was a fucking jungle at times in the 80s-90s (pre-Clinton years, pre-economic recovery) but I never had to put up with the things Charles had to put up with. I had my friends and my friends all looked like me. Charles had his friends but no-one looked like him.

Until Junior high school that is. In Junior High we all got a taste of Charles struggles (never as bad, however, being a group of white kids isn't as bad as being the lone black kid)). And my Latino last name didn’t mean shit either. I was a white dude with white friends and a smart white dude to boot which separated me from the dumb white dude crowd. But you know what? Through it all Charles hung with us and occasionally defended us, much the same way we hung and occasionally defended him in elementary school (and occasionally means when shit got out of control, name-calling usually not the best use of a friend save). There’s racism everywhere on all sides directed at all people and you get it no matter where you reside, even "super-liberal" New York. It’s actually sad how few people can seemingly be immune to its pull but at the same time it’s nice to know that not everyone harbors those feelings.

turn off the metallica, fanboy: Straight out the Jungle

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Phil Hester, The Plan and The Fight

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

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