Excerpt from “The Shitbox”
By Martín Rosales
Henry chewed with his mouth open, and Owen had two straws shoved up his nose. It was a crisp February afternoon — that chilled Texan day when the sky clouds over and the whole world seems to gray. It was lunchtime at my old high school, and I sat alongside my group of smelly teenage buddies in the cafeteria. We were freshmen, so we were hardly more evolved than the common chimp.
Despite the gray day, the room was loud as trays clattered and people’s conversations carried through the air. There were ten of us in the friend group, and we all shared a group chat. Currently, we numbered nine to a table, meaning that one of us was missing. Just by glancing at us, anyone who even distantly knew of us could tell who was missing.
A bit of an oddity amongst the rest of us freshmen, Sebastian was a sophomore who had been held back a year. The unofficial patriarch of the group, he was two years our senior with his slicked back hair, impressively wide shoulders, and skin pockmarked by acne.
It was during this particular lunch period, in the midst of Owen trying to win a debate as to whether or not he could shove his whole fist in his mouth, that a message appeared in the group chat.
“Come outside. Parking lot.”
Johnny was the one who had noticed the text, and he brought it to all of our attention. I saw that it had been sent by Sebastian.
Intrigued by the message, we all left our food behind and hustled outside. Upon entering the parking lot, we saw Sebastian waiting by the side of the road, back leaning up against a rusty gray Ford-F150. Now, this truck was heavily lifted — and I mean heavily lifted — and really old to boot. None of us had ever seen it before.
As we slowly realized what this sight could mean, our group began to chatter amongst ourselves like the primates we were. We were all fourteen-fifteen at the time and unable to drive ourselves freely. But Sebastian was older. Old enough to do certain things the rest of us couldn’t yet.
Seeing our questions, Sebastian silently took off his sunglasses and held up his hand, shushing us. In the palm of that hand was a black key-fob. Sebastian had just bought himself a used Ford shitbox. To a group of pubescent freshmen, it was prettier than a Porsche.
Without so much as even discussing the issue, we all filed into the truck. There were five seats within the main cabin, and a whole lot of empty space in the back. After jostling and elbowing my way through the other clanmates, I found my seat in the back of the cabin. The majority of the fighting was for shotgun, and by being humble and taking one of the backseats early, I guaranteed my spot inside the truck. After a short kerfuffle, two other chimps ended up burrowing beside me in the back and one of the larger boys got to sit up in the front, next to Sebastian. The remaining losers piled into the bed, making up for the lack of seatbelts with raw enthusiasm and grit.
It wasn’t the most logical decision — ditching school in the middle of the lunch period to get into a truck that was considered old ten years ago — but you have to understand something. We were freshmen. We were bound to our lack of automotive freedom like a ball and chain. Sure, there were fantasies of one day scraping together enough cash to afford a car, but nobody thought that we would get anywhere close to that for another few years.
And here was Sebastian — big, beautiful Sebastian — getting a truck for all of us to ride in. Of course we jumped in. Of course we sped off into the distance, off on a voyage to our local Chick-fil-A. Of course, we skipped all of our subsequent classes in favor of driving around our podunk town. To do anything else would be a clear violation of everything we stood for.
Did we regret the ass-beatings we got later in the day after getting home and finding out all of our parents had gotten calls from the school? No. Did we skip class the next day to spend time with Sebastian and the shitbox? Yes.
I will never forget the day that Sebastian bought that shitbox.
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