Southern Bastards #5

"Gridiron," Part One
written by Jason Aaron
art by Jason Latour

Euless Boss has been a monomaniacal madman since he was a high-school try-out.

"It's football, sir.  It's worth the blood."  (Southern Bastards #5: 2)

He's also the victim of teammate bullying that goes well beyond cruelty and humiliation to assault and rape.  Boss is the dark mirror of Craw County, the violent football-obsessed id who revels in making apathetic cowards confront head-on exactly what they've been working to avoid.  He attends Tubb's funeral.  He hangs his own murder weapon—Earl Tubb's lightning club—in his own BBQ restaurant, still stained with Tubb's blood.

"I DON'T WANT 'EM TO FORGET.  I want the whole fuckin' county to remember what I done, and how they all just stood there and watched and didn't lift a fuckin' finger, didn't say a goddamn word." (19)

He's absolutely convinced that no one will do anything about it, that he will never be called to talk over his murder of Earl Tubb.  He may be wrong about that.

Tubb has enemies:  the ailing mayor and his Nancy-Reagan-clone wife; the Compson twins, bank owners and business women; a backwoods survivalist; a masked rival gang with automatic weapons from Mobile; a bevy of rival high-school football communities, who'd love to see Boss undone; now the Sheriff, once a loyal player now faced with Boss's increasingly disrespectful and lording behavior; and, of course, the town mutt who took to Tubb.  Craw County may be populated by weak and distracted fools, unwilling to intervene with their crime-lord coach, but it's also teeming with folks just waiting for someone to ignite the place, to lead them against the local kingpin.