The way they sat — that too I recall quite vividly. They sprawled with weary abandon, feet on the rungs of their desks, knees apart, like women in birthing chairs. But there would be all this tension in their jaws — an inordinate amount, as if all their testosterone had bivouacked there to rest up for the next hallway dominance display. Lolling, practically supine, they’d chew gum, bearing down hard. Or they’d glare at the clock, masseters flexing. I can picture one of them punctuating a smart-ass remark with a sudden, teeth-gnashing smile — louche, twinkly, crocodilian.

Oh my God, you are so immature, their female friends would say, constantly. They were immature, but there was also something extremely precocious about them, something oddly adult. They acted just like cocky assholes twice their age, drawling their way through off-color anecdotes with the jaded amusement of i-bankers, and hailing one another in the halls with an air of grim camaraderie that said, We few, we happy few. How did they figure it all out so early — style, demeanor, a whole way of being a person — when the rest of us were still bumbling around? I didn’t understand it then, but now I realize that, just like aristocrats, the jocks in my high school truly were the heirs of a venerable and highly prestigious tradition, one that has been handed down, older brother to younger, senior to freshman, ever since jocks became jocks, whenever that was.