Sport Mascots Flash Fiction

Brian Roller had walked into the gym to see if he could get enrolled to the football team from his school. He walked through the place and went to talk to Mr. Rogers the coach of the 'Scarlet Feathers' the school's team. Brian showed the coach his skills and immediately he got accepted.

Brian told his mother everything that had happened to him that day, he was really excited about the idea of playing for that team, he told her about the players, the coach... and the name of the team.

'Is it a football team formed with only Native American people? if not you won't play!' asked his mother in an accusing tone; you see, Brian's family descended from a line of the Wenatchi tribe from Washington. Sandra Roller was probably one of the people who had suffered from racial discrimination the most, she experienced some degrading situations when she was  younger and thus she got marked in her heart.  

Sandra told her son not to get enrolled to that team, Brian tried to convince her mother that it wasn't something to worry about, they were only using an emblem and a name... so what? it wasn't a big deal plus he was really good at that sport, but his mother wouldn't accept it. Brian wanted to play so badly and he couldn't help it, he went to the 'Scarlet Feathers' coach and got into the team.

Brian played as the quarterback from his team and he was the best doing it. Everything was pretty fine and dandy until his first match. The 'scarlet feathers' played against the 'Silver Falcons', it was a beautiful sunny day and Brian was going to make his debut as quarterback. The game was about to begin and then he saw Hokee. Hokee was the Feather's mascot and was portrayed by a big, overweight white guy wearing just a set of ochre torn pants tied by a red rope as a belt, he had some kind of dulled axe hanging from the red rope. He was wearing a black wig combed into two braids placed in a funny way over his head, at the top of the wig there was a long red feather.

Brian wasn't aware of Hokee and the portrayal that it represented in every game, Hokee meant 'Abandoned' in Navajo dialect, he knew that. 'Hokee' started jumping and dancing in circles, the guy was trying to imitate, in a mocking way, some Native American dance but he looked more like a limping drunk. Brian felt like he had done wrong, he knew that he had abandoned his beliefs, he abandoned his traditions, he turned his back to his blood roots and what was worse, he felt like abandoning his mother.  Brian took his helmet off and he abandoned the field... he went to hug his mother.