Southern Bastards #3

"Here Was a Man," Part Three
written by Jason Aaron
art by Jason Latour

Football is an ideology, a life philosophy to some.  When local red-headed troublemaker Tad Ledbetter confides to Earl Tubb that Coach Boss "still runs tackling drills with the defensive ends" and "buries folks under the bleachers" (Southern Bastards #3: 12), it's damn near the same thing.  Boss pays no mind to rules—whether they be competitive football practice regulations or federal laws.  His rage and frustration at no-huddle football equally indicative of his outlaw temperament.  Coach Boss is a blunt instrument, even more so than Tubb's wooden club.  For all his illicit finagling, he's little more than a bully, and a traditionalist at that.  Thugs and downhill football.

And for all his bullying, it may be just that that starts to earn Tubb allies.  Tree-climbing Tad aside, Boss's goons threaten Craw County's sheriff to back him off arresting Earl Tubb.  He may be a former player and Boss loyalist now, but once Coach Boss's confederates start to feel bullied themselves, they may not find themselves all that eager to cooperate with the football crime lord.

Earl Tubb may be brutally laconic with Craw County's citizens:  unflinching and unequivocal (in speech and in beating) with Esaw, politely terse with waitress Shawna, and blunt (if sincerely caring) with boy Tad.  But he's reflectively confessional with the mysterious answering machine on the phone.  With each imagining of the messages' recipient—wife, ex-wife, lover, mother, child, friend—the nuance of his tone shifts, though they remain the final words of a resolute, if apprehensive, man to the outside world before the storm begins.

Coach Boss and his army of hooligans may imagine themselves as rebels, both ideologically and as their high school mascot affiliation, but Tubb is the revolutionary.

"And I'll be back for some more tomorrow.  And every day after that, until I get some answers.  From Coach Boss himself, if need be.  Anybody else who ain't happy with the way this county is bein' run or the folks who figure they're runnin' it... well, like I said, I'll be here tomorrow.  Why don't y'all come join me?" (10)

It's a call to arms and an invitation to insurrection.  Esaw may have "REBEL" tattooed across his neck and a Confederate battle flag on his arm, but Tubb's bona fide.