The Rome of Fall

by Chad Alan Gibbs

  “There’s nothing to explain,” I said. “You fooled me twice; the shame’s on me this time.”

  “Fooled you twice? Marcus, what are you talking about?”

  “Jackson,” I snarled. “I walked in on you and Jackson in that Montgomery hotel after the state championship game twenty-three years ago.”

  Students making their way into the gymnasium stared at us, and Becca pulled me away from the entrance and, looking genuinely confused, repeated, “You walked in on Jackson and me after the state championship game? Marcus what are you talking about?”

  “I loved you, Becca,” I said, pulling at my hair in frustration. “I’ve loved you from the moment you walked into Mr. Galba’s class wearing that Weezer T-shirt, and I was going to tell you that night, but then I saw you in bed with Jackson. You’re the reason I left Rome that December. God, I never should have come back.”

  “Marcus,” Becca said, putting a hand on my arm that I shrugged off. “I honestly don’t know what you are talking about. I hardly even remember that night. I was drunk out of my mind. Everyone was. Three teachers got divorced after that party. Maybe I did make out with Jackson, but I’m pretty sure I made out with MeghanJennifer at one point too. Wait, is that why you kept asking why I didn’t go to prom or the Christmas dance with Jackson? Marcus, we were never together. It was ten minutes of drunk kissing, and you walked in at the absolute worst time. I swear to god.”

  “I seem to keep doing that,” I said.

  “Yes ... no ... Marcus, what you saw this morning ... that started a year ago, before you came back. Things got so complicated ... and I never thought you’d actually stay in Rome ... I was going to tell Jackson this morning it was all over, and that you and I—”

  Becca froze as Amy Crowder walked by, glaring at Becca before entering the gymnasium with ill intent.

  “Dammit,” Becca said. “I’ve ruined everything. I always ruin everything. Marcus, please—”

  She was right; she did always ruin everything. Honestly, that’s all I really knew about her. For half my life, I’d been in love with a face, with the idea of a girl that only existed in my mind. Based on nothing more than careless flirting and shared taste in music, I’d convinced myself she was my soul mate, when in fact all she ever did was break my heart, and when I finally realized this, I felt a beautiful release.

  “You know it was you, right? You were the girl, Becca. Every song I ever wrote was about you.”

  “Marcus, I—”

  “You were all I ever wanted, but now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not see your lying face ever again.”

  I turned and walked into the candlelit gymnasium, where students, cheerleaders, and the Marching Legion waited patiently for their heroes, and found a spot along the wall next to the crazy old man who always screamed about Middlesboro, and Deacon Cassburn, who smelled like bourbon and was so drunk he’d brought a cup of whatever he was drinking into the school with him.

  “Brinks, my friend,” Deacon slurred, and when I nodded his way, he added, “Today’s my birthday, Brinks. Ain’t that some shit?”

  A snare drummer beat out a cadence, and single file, the football team entered the gym through the door to our right, making their way toward the stage. The assistant coaches followed, and as Jackson entered the gym, Deacon pushed past me, knocked Jackson to the ground with a right cross, then poured his cup on the coach’s head before stumbling into the parking lot.

  A crowd of students, fans, and two process servers closed in on Jackson, helping him to his feet and offering towels, and when the commotion cleared, Jackson held two summons notifying him of two lawsuits filed against him earlier that morning. Dazed, he continued toward half-court, where a microphone awaited, and as he took off his windbreaker and tried to dry off, the crowd watched in silence.

  Principal Trajan’s footsteps echoed as he crossed the court to have a word with Jackson, and as their hushed conversation grew louder, everyone in the gym heard Jackson say, “I’ll text the pictures to your wife right now if you don’t get your ass off my court, soldier.”

  Trajan hesitated then turned and walked away, and after Jackson wiped the blood from his mouth, he grabbed the microphone and said, “When you’re successful, like me, the jealous losers of the world will always try to bring you down.” The crowd applauded this because they’d always applauded whenever Jackson said anything. “Like Fletcher Morgan,” Jackson continued, “who tried to sabotage all we’ve worked for. But I’ve learned the Rome police arrested Fletcher minutes ago on child pornography charges.” More applause followed, though this time mixed with murmurs of confusion. “Fletcher came at the king and missed, and now he’s paying the price. Like Deacon Cassburn, who wanted to bring me down but has now fallen so far he’s shit-faced, stumbling around a high school parking lot at ten in the morning.” Jackson held up the two summons, one a civil liberties suit, the other concerning the Americans with Disabilities Act, then ripped them to pieces and shouted, “The losers will try to tear down what we’ve built here. They will try, and they will fail!”

  Jackson turned to address his team on stage and, for the first time, saw Silas, sitting front and center, wearing a purple windbreaker. “Oh, hell no,” Jackson said and turned to yell at Principal Trajan, who was now having a hushed conversation with members of the Rubicon County School Board. Jackson turned back toward Silas and shouted, “Clothes don’t make you the king, you crippled loser. If you think I’m stepping down, I’ll tell you what I just told Trajan. It’s not happening. Not now. Not ever. I’m the only constant here. I’m the fucking northern star.”

  “Coach,” Darryl the atheist shouted from across the gym, “any comment on the Riverton Times report that Kyler Barton is ineligible for tonight’s game because he failed English literature? Will Rome forfeit all games he participated in?”

  Jackson stared at Darryl, then turned and found me against the wall.

  “You too, Brinks?”

  “Me too, you piece of shit!”

  I often wonder what Caesar thought when the first dagger pierced his side. If his life flashed before his eyes, did he see the miscalculations that would eventually lead to his bloody end in the Theatre of Pompey? If he had it all to do over, would he not cross the Rubicon? Would he stay in Egypt and settle down with Cleopatra? Would he sleep in on the Ides of March? Or are men like Caesar, like Jackson Crowder, incapable of seeing their mistakes even with the benefit of hindsight?

  Jackson scanned the gymnasium, looking for a single friendly face, but not finding one. When he hung his head and rubbed his temples, his state championship ring sparkled in the candlelight. His reign was over, he could see that at least, even if he couldn’t understand why, and defeated, his footsteps echoed as he walked toward the exit. But then something inside him truly snapped, and he turned and charged me with crazed anger in his black eyes. Perhaps he intended to fight us all and I was just first, or maybe, in his sick mind, my return to Rome planted the seed of his downfall. Either way, I fully intended to go down swinging, until Diana bolted through the door and, smelling the wolf piss Deacon had just poured on Jackson, proceeded to rip my old friend to shreds.

  Many things that go through your mind when you see your oldest friend and enemy being eaten alive by a snarling she-wolf, first and foremost, ‘Thank god that’s not me.’

  I’d like to go on record here and say that arming educators is a terrible idea. I had teachers, and so did you, who shouldn’t have been trusted with a letter opener, much less a handgun. And yet, had several teachers not been packing heat that day, Diana might have hurt a student, and that would have been truly tragic. But as it was, while the wolf snapped and growled and students screamed and ran and knocked over candles, fortune presented two dozen educators and administrators who Jackson had blackmailed over the years, along with a scorned wife with fervent Levitical beliefs on the appropriate punishment for adulterers, an opportunity they’d likely never have again. In the following days, a Rubicon County Sheriff
’s ballistics expert concluded they’d fired a combined sixty rounds at Deacon’s pet wolf. Twenty-three hit the great Jackson Crowder.

  In a desperate attempt to restore order, Silas shouted into his microphone, “Students, teachers, Romans, listen to me!” But the stage curtain was now on fire, and by nightfall, Rome High School would lay in ashes. Rome’s students would finish the school year attending Carthage and Sparta, and when their school was rebuilt a year later, the Alabama High School Athletic Association thought it best they never field another football team.

  Somehow, in the chaos of screaming and stampeding Romans, I found myself outside in the parking lot, watching flames lick the roof of the Ronald J. Pumphrey Gymnasium. And with sirens roaring in the distance and black smoke blotting out the cold December sun, I walked away from it all, past the statue of my old friend, across a field of fake grass.

  Dear Brutus Wikipedia Entry (Updated)

  Dear Brutus is an American indie rock band formed in Austin, Texas in 1996, consisting of Marcus Brinks (lead vocals, guitar), Porter Clayton (drums, xylophone, accordion), Wade Barker (guitar, zanzithophone, backing vocals), Kyle Craven (bass guitar, banjo, backing vocals), and Piper Van Pelt (piano, pipe organ, synthesizer, bullhorn, backing vocals).

  After signing to Geffen Records in 1997, the band released its eponymous debut, known as the Beige Album, which has sold over 700,000 copies, was certified gold, and hailed by Rolling Stone as, “a gut-wrenchingly confessional, lo-fi power-pop masterpiece.” [1] Widely considered to be inspired by The Giver, Lois Lowry’s young adult dystopian novel, and lead singer Marcus Brinks’s high school crush, the Beige Album received universal acclaim and holds a perfect score of 100 on the aggregate review website Metacritic.[2][3]

  The group disbanded in 1998, when Brinks, citing stress, abruptly walked off stage during an Amsterdam concert, though after months of eccentric behavior followed by years of reclusion, it is generally believed the lead singer suffered a nervous breakdown.[4]

  In early 2018, Dear Brutus shocked fans by announcing the impending release of their long-awaited second album. According to the band’s official Twitter account, the album, rumored to be inspired by the death of lead singer Marcus Brinks’s mother, will be called The Rome of Fall.[5]

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my wife, Tricia, whose disdain of mushy public declarations of love leaves me with little choice but to quote “Buddy Holly” by Weezer. “Woo-hoo, but you know I’m yours. Woo-hoo, and I know you’re mine. Woo-hoo, and that’s for all of time.”

  Thanks to my sons, Linus and Oliver, who contributed nothing to the creation of this book, and in fact, hindered its completion by several months. Nevertheless, I love you both more than I knew possible.

  Thanks to my family, Kim and Alan Gibbs, Karen and Harrell Day, Ashleigh and Beau Ashley, and Lori and Johnny Dorminey, for their love and support, and thanks to my nieces and nephews, Garrett Ashley, Morgan Ashley, Chandler Ashley, Ava Dorminey, and Jake Dorminey, who hopefully still think it’s cool to see their names in my books.

  Thanks to Becky Philpott for her many hours of editing expertise. If you enjoyed this book, thank Becky, if you didn’t, just know it could have been much worse.

  Thanks to everyone who read early versions of this book and didn’t tell me to delete the manuscript and find a new line of work, including Jess Parris, Ava Dorminey, Deb Rhodes, Joseph Craven, Jessica Buttram, J.T. Hornbuckle, Karen Day, Mary Grace Powers, Lori and Johnny Dorminey, and Shay Baugh.

  I listened to a lot of ‘90s music while working on The Rome of Fall, including, but not limited to, Beck, Blur, Beastie Boys, Blues Traveler, Green Day, Mazzy Star, Nirvana, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Pearl Jam, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pavement, Warren G, Lisa Loeb, Oasis, and Weezer. Thanks to all these artists for making the music that defined my high school years, and again thanks to Tricia, for not saying anything when I briefly began wearing my Kurt Cobain flannel shirt again.

  No thanks to the Glencoe High School class of 1996 for choosing “Love Me Tomorrow” by Chicago as our prom song over “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star. Seriously guys?

  And finally, thanks to everyone who read my first novel, Two Like Me and You. Your kind reviews and notes of encouragement sustained me while I worked on this book, and I do hope you enjoyed it as well.

  Also by Chad Alan Gibbs

  Two Like Me and You

  “A smashing debut that’s both intimate and epic.”

  –Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  Edwin Green's ex-girlfriend is famous. We're talking cover-of-every-tabloid-in-the-grocery-store-line famous. She dumped Edwin one year ago on what he refers to as Black Saturday, and in hopes of winning her back, he's spent the last twelve months trying to become famous himself. It hasn't gone well.

  But when a history class assignment pairs Edwin with Parker Haddaway, the mysterious new girl at school, she introduces him to Garland Lenox, the nursing-home-bound World War II veteran who will change Edwin's life forever.

  The three escape to France, in search of the old man's long-lost love, and as word of their hilarious adventure spreads, they become media darlings. But when things fall apart, they also become the focus of French authorities. In a race against time, who will find love, and who will only find more heartache?

  Click here to purchase

  A Note from the Author

  Hey, I’m Chad, and I wrote the book you just read. I live in Auburn, Alabama with my wife, two sons, one dog (we miss you Harper), and an embarrassingly large collection of Star Wars action figures. The Rome of Fall is my second novel, and if you liked it and want me to write more books, here are a couple of ways you can help out ...

  Write a review – Reviews on retail sites or Goodreads are pure gold, so if you will take a minute to write an honest review I’ll be forever grateful.

  Tell a friend – The advertising budget for a book like this one is entirely inadequate, so if you have a friend or book club that might enjoy reading The Rome of Fall, I hope you’ll recommend it.

  Thank you again for reading. Please visit me online at chadalangibbs.com, and sign up for my newsletter here.

  Copyright

  The Rome of Fall

  Copyright © 2020 by Chad Alan Gibbs

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events or places or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  provided by Five Rainbows Cataloging Services

  Names: Gibbs, Chad Alan, author.

  Title: The Rome of fall / Chad Alan Gibbs.

  Description: Auburn, AL : Borne Back Books, 2020.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019918567 (print) | ISBN 978-0-9857165-6-1 (paperback) | ISBN 978-0-9857165-7-8 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Rock musicians—Fiction. | Football players—Fiction. | Alabama—Fiction. | Bildungsromans. | Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Julius Caesar—Adaptations. | BISAC: FICTION / Coming of Age. | FICTION / Southern. | GSAFD: Bildungsromans.

  Classification: LCC PS3607.I2255 R66 2020 (print) | LCC PS3607.I2255 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23.