Travis Flatt: THE SPARTANS SACK TROY, ALABAMA • Cleaver Magazine

Flash by Travis Flatt
THE SPARTANS SACK TROY, ALABAMA

I.
They hunker in the dark, spying from peepholes carved in the galley of the Horse as Police Chief Frank Meyers argues with firemen over how best to haul this giant, wooden thing some asshole frat boys, they figure, wheeled onto Willow Avenue in the dead of night, jamming traffic all to hell. Inside, Ulysses tells them to wait for his command. They’re tired, thirsty, and hot—knees sore from kneeling on boards moist from piss and spilled wine. Agamemnon sleeps, his snores muffled by the war banner someone flopped over his face. Outside, a crowd of locals line the sidewalk, some sitting in foldout camping chairs, watching on bemused, assuming a parade awaits, though no one knows the occasion or who arranged it. When the courthouse clock tower chimes at noon, Ulysses mistakes the tolling for the Spartan camp’s war horn. He turns the wheel, lowers the door, and forty bronze armored brutes go charging out, spears and axes aloft, to barrel battle-crazed toward a laughing and clapping congregation of popcorn-munching, Coke-sipping Southerns.

II.
Across town, it’s the big game, and half of Troy’s at the high school this fall afternoon. Something, people are saying, about a horse and a parade downtown? From the stadium stands, Aiden Meyers, son of the police chief, watches as they carry his older brother, Tristan, the Trojan’s star quarterback, off the field after an egregious late hit. It’s only the second quarter, and their rival, the White County Spartans, is already crushing them thirty-five to zip. Star halfback of the Trojan’s, Ulysses Bray—great, great, etc., grandson of the mythological one—is having a spectacular game and has run in each Trojan touchdown. Worse than his brother’s injury are the googly-eyes Aiden’s girlfriend, Helly, the cheer squad captain, openly slathers on Ulysses, their humiliator. All of Aiden’s friends have noticed and teased him. Not only must he console his hysterical mother’s phone calls—SEC coaches have scouted his brother for months—but quell the urge to blacken the eyes of boys he’s buddied with since grade school and get expelled. After several deep breaths and a hotdog, he searches for a quiet spot to compose an appropriately epic breakup text to Helly, the girl of his dreams.

III.
The victorious White County Spartans tear a goalpost from the defeated Trojans’s field. The spectators, coaches, and players must allow this. It’s tradition. In fact, many of them help. Not the coaches; they stand back and calculate the cost of the damage, the hell they’ll catch from the administration. Now the crowd, which rises in temperature as it carries the post to triumphantly dump on the steps of the courthouse—again, tradition—marches down the short stretch of highway connecting Troy High School to the city proper. Aiden Meyers attempts to wade through the bodies and find Helly but discovers she sits on the shoulders of Ulysses, the rival halfback. He sent his text, but she, of course, ignored it. Furious, he plans to tackle the much larger Ulysses from behind, toppling his ex to the pavement. Or is she still his girlfriend? That point’s foggy in his mind. He envisions her falling and knocking a tooth loose. He waffles on the plan, and he’s leaning against it—but hasn’t ruled it out—when the crowd lurches to a halt. In the jostle of bodies, Helly tumbles from her perch anyway. Halfback Ulysses ignores this, pushes forward, and Aiden slips ahead to help the bruised and confused Helly to her feet. She thanks him but is interrupted by excited shouting and pointing. There’s smoke on the horizon. Maybe someone’s struck up a barbeque, or that’s one hell of a parade.

Travis Flatt (he/him) is an epileptic teacher and actor living in Cookeville, Tennessee. His stories appear in Prime Number, The /tEmz/ Review, Variant Lit, New Flash Fiction Review, Neither Fish Nor Foul, Flash Boulevard, and other places. He is a Best Small Fictions nominee and was long-listed for the Wigleaf Top 50. Travis Flatt enjoys theater, dogs, and theatrical dogs, often with his wife and son.