INTRO TO FIRST YEAR HISTORY (HIS1001)

Salvete, students!

I'm Dr. Alden Whitmore, retired history lecturer at St. George's School. Though I specialize in Ancient Greek and Roman history, I've taught it all, from Cleopatra to Churchill.

My firmest belief is, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I've worked tirelessly at my profession with that belief in mind.

Though I'm reputable by any standard of measure, I'm a failure by my own. Few students of mine ever took history seriously, Even less found it anywhere near as fascinating as I did.

In fact, in all my years of teaching, only two boys, now young adults, ever took history to be as deeply meaningful as myself. A snide prick of a boy named Hugo Vale, and his violent compatriot, Daniel Green.

Devious, irreverent miscreants, they were, without question, the most malformed boys I've ever spent any time around.

They were also, without question, my favorite students. Their impact on my life cannot be understated. I only hope the ghosts of my lectures still lurk somewhere in their minds. History is a tomb, after all, where the past awaits to be revealed as living.

Here, I will guide you, my new students, through their history, just as I guided them through the World's. What sits in that tomb of Hugo and Daniel's, waiting to be revealed? What secrets dance in the darkest corners?

And what can we learn from them?

📖

MOVE-IN DAY

Pointed arches. Deep gables.

St. George's School, one of the elite private boarding schools in all of America. The mid-century gothic architecture betrayed its pretense, and the old money that was shoveled into its begging maw like coal in a furnace.

It was Move-In Day. All the rich, teenaged pricks ran wild through the halls, the dorms, and really, it was all too much for Hugo Vale.

He’d closed himself in his own dorm an hour prior. Armed with a gorgeous head of chestnut hair, a tweed jacket that cost more than a semester at Dartmouth, a flask that bore his father's name, and a gold case of hand-rolled cigarettes, he was as prepared for this war as he would ever be.

Still, why bother?

His room was as decorated as he could be bothered to decorate. A flag of the Roman Legion on one wall, a John Waterhouse painting of Nero on the other.

He reached in a Burberry duffle bag, withdrew a folded up piece of paper. A painting he'd made when he was seven. “Happy Fathers Day, Hudson Vale!” written in childish watercolor, accompanying his pink hand prints.

When he showed his mother, it brought forth her jealous ire. “My sweet Hugo,” she'd said. “Your father doesn't even know you exist.”

Hugo never gave it to him.

He never understood why he kept it.

With care, he folded it back up, placed it in the top drawer of a dresser.

Immediately, he felt an intense need for a cigarette. Maybe he was really addicted, or maybe he just needed to feel cool. He wasn't sure. But he knew he couldn't get what he wanted here.

So he took a deep breath, counted to three, and stepped out of his room.

The legions were restless, carefree, and energetic. Hugo found it crass and revolting, the way they ran around, hooting and hollering like animals. He found them crass and revolting as well.

He moved through the halls with no intention of speaking a word to anyone. Not even “excuse me.”

Yet as he made his way through the masses of trustfund kids that just weren't quite as rich as him, one kid caught his eye.

African-American, tall, irritated. Invisible. Angry about it. 

Hugo liked that he looked angry. It was an attractive quality.

As he made his way out of the dorms and towards the lacrosse field, he figured maybe he'd introduce himself.

Hugo thought they'd probably get along kingly.

📖

PRIMARY SOURCE - DANIEL GREEN

Ever meet someone and instantly know they’re going to significantly change the trajectory of your life?

For me, that was Hugo Vale.

He was getting the shit beaten out of him behind the school gym. A blind spot for the administration, and an ideal place for stuff like that to go down whenever it needed to go down. I avoided it for the most part—shoes weren’t provided as part of St. George’s uniform, and I couldn’t afford to scuff mine kicking some rich asshole’s head in just because he wanted to press the outsider.

Unlike most of the kids spending ten months out of the year at St. George’s, shipped away from their families, I didn’t come from money so old it helped fund the civil war. The Sebastians, the Prestons, the Blakes, with their Hampton summers, Gstaad winters, hedge fund internships that pay a doctor’s salary, a salary they don’t give a fuck about because it’s a teardrop in the ocean that is their monthly allowance. We weren’t just different people; we were different species. I’m the scholarship kid—popped a good score on an important test—from the spooky inner city; not of their cloth, not worth their time.

Figured Hugo would be like all the others. He looked the same, sounded the same, combed his hair the same.

But one thing you can definitively say about Hugo Vale after knowing him for some time: he’s truly one-of-one. You’re sure he’s going right; he goes left. You think you’ve got him figured out, but what he’s shown you is just another layer you haven’t yet peeled back.

As I got close, one of the three seniors—varsity water polo, all of them—moved around and inadvertently blocked my view, but I could hear the wet packing sounds of fist hitting face.

Hugo didn’t cower. He stood straight up, his back to the bricks, taunting his attackers with a bloody grin. The arrogance was inspiring. The shots didn’t register, not even when they swapped out for a fresh hitter and continued to try their best at caving in his rib cage.

I could’ve ignored it, kept on walking. Wasn’t my place, really. Where I’m from, you keep your nose outta other people’s business as a rule. But something stopped me in my tracks, and I turned and started toward the group.

First thing I did was drive the point of my knuckles into the back of the biggest kid’s head. You know the bump on the back of your head? I targeted that bump with a haymaker I pulled from my ankles and immediately shoved him face first into the bricks. He shrieked like a bitch and started crying, not that I blame the guy. Getting your first concussion and having your nose shattered probably sucked.

After that, I one-two’ed on the kid nearest me, catching him off guard and sending him pitching over backward like a log. I kicked him in the face for good measure as he tried to sit up and that put him out.

Fucking smeared blood over my shoe, too. Irreparably stained.

Thankfully, as you’ll learn, money soon would become less of a scarce resource for me.

Last kid just ran off.

Things were quiet after that.

Hugo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tilted his head at me like I was something interesting under a microscope, and smirked.

“Green, right?” he said. “Daniel Green?”

Not thanks. Not you didn’t have to do that. Just my name. Like he’d been waiting to say it.

“Yeah,” I responded. “And you’re Hugo. Hugo Vale. Cool name.”

He looked me over, scanning from my unkempt hair—hadn’t had a haircut since I arrived, still missing my neighborhood barber—down to my blood-flecked shoes. He reached out, pinching the fabric of my shirt between his fingers, lips pursed in quiet derision.

“Your tailor must be American,” he said, the corner of his mouth pinned in a grin that was both mocking and, somehow, understanding. “An Italian would never let you leave his shop with stitching that cheap and a collar that sits like a broken necktie.”

I glanced down at the shirt.

“It’s the school uniform.” I spread my arms slightly, like, what does he expect? “Didn’t exactly get a custom fitting.”

I almost told him I didn’t even own a proper dress shirt before St. George’s, that I showed up with exactly one button-up I stole from a dying department store and had to buy the rest from the school store. Which meant I didn’t eat lunch that first week (the only meal students were expected to pay for out-of-pocket). But something about the way he was looking at me—like he already knew—made me keep that to myself.

Hugo hummed, considering me like a puzzle he’d just decided was worth solving. With gentle arrogance, he smoothed the sleeve of my shirt, flicked a bit of dust off my shoulder, and said:

“Well, that won’t do.”

He straightened, sighing as though this were some great, personal burden. “I suppose we could fix it. If you don’t mind a little detour. Off-campus. Strictly educational, of course.”

His eyes cut to mine, watching, waiting.

An invitation. A test.

Freshmen were strictly forbidden from leaving campus without explicit permission.

I smirked.

Rules never meant much to me, and consequences only mattered once they hit.

“Yeah. Why the hell not?”

HOURS LATER…

You know a place is meant for the elite when it sits in the most expensive part of town and doesn’t even need a sign. No name, no branding—just a door that only certain people know to knock on.

We’d slipped into the tailor’s hushed, near-monastic workshop through a door in a back alley.

I stood there two-and-a-half hours later, stripped to my boxers, balancing on a wooden platform. A small fireplace crackled across the room. The old Italian tailor—surely pushing eighty—worked in silence, sharp-eyed and meticulous, muttering under his breath as he measured, pinned, and noted each adjustment. He never spoke to me or Hugo directly, just flicked an eyebrow when something needed fixing and scrawled his findings in a coffee-stained ledger, the handwriting barely legible but unmistakably precise.

We’d already done this once, but he (non-verbally) insisted on some last-minute adjustments. When this is all you know, the little details matter.

Without a word, he waddled off into an adjacent room, leaving me alone with my newfound… patron, handler—whatever Hugo was.

Hugo took a delicate sip of the champagne the tailor’s assistant brought us upon arrival. We were fifteen, yes, but we were clients, and clients got champagne. A plate of olives and Parmigiano sat between us—because, of course, an Italian tailor wouldn’t serve anything else.

“That crusty fucker drives a Rolls Royce,” Hugo chirped, the tone pure gossip, though he didn’t bother lowering his voice. Not that it mattered—I was pretty sure the old man was deaf-deaf. “Imagine that. Rolls Royce money from a needle and thread. You just know he’s the best.”

Being honest, after the tailor returned and slipped me into my new fit, I didn’t want to look at myself in the ornate mirror set up for that very purpose. How many soft-handed, silver-spooned little princes had stood there, admiring themselves over the decades?

It disgusted me. Because I knew I was just a plus-one here. And though I gave Hugo a nod of gratitude as he settled up with the old man—no cash exchanged, the bill added to the boy’s account—I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was wearing someone else’s skin.

I just didn’t realize how easy that would become… or how quickly.

MINUTES LATER…

We stepped out into the back alley, both clad in fresh, five-thousand-dollar suits. (Hugo bought himself one too—because, why not?) It was late, and I had a math test to study for in the morning.

Hugo pulled out a gold cigarette case, flipping it open to reveal half a dozen hand-rolled smokes. He plucked one out, let it dangle from his mouth, then turned the case toward me.

I waved it off.

He cocked an eyebrow, grinning like the devil himself. “Come on, Danny Boy, it’s no fun if you’re not killing yourself.”

Couldn’t argue with that. My head was still swimming from champagne, so I snatched one from the case and pressed it between my lips.

He lit us both. We stood there in silence, dragging deep, exhaling slow, watching the smoke curl into the cold night air.

“I guess I should say thank—”

Hugo cut me off with the flash of a black Amex, his smile razor-sharp. “Let’s say you and I go get fucked up on Daddy’s dime.”

I should’ve made an excuse. Should’ve gone home. Should’ve known better.

But where’s the fun in that?

📖

HANDPRINTS

As you can see, the history of Hugo and Daniel is, at its heart, a story of friendship.

But as we continue forward in this course, we will see how, in just four years, they became so much more than each other’s friend. They became each other's brother. Each other's father. Each other's son. Each other's rival. Each other's enemy. Each other's savior.

This, however, is only our first day of class. There will be ample time spent on the major events of their story, their implications, and the lessons they teach us.

For now, we pivot, to just a week ago.

At age 19, whatever changes they have gone through mentally may not, as of yet, be entirely clear. But their bodies have aged well and noticeably. Gone is the baby fat that once adorned their cheeks and arms. Their cheekbones, as sharp as their suits and as high as their opinions of themselves. Their bodies, trim and toned from intense exercise and dieting. Their private jet, waiting for them on a runway just outside of Buenos Aires. Themselves, stood in one of the most remarkable places in the history of the world.

Cueva de las Manos (Cave of Hands), Rio Pentura, Argentina.

From 13,000-9,500 years ago, hunter-gatherers of South America painted the walls of the magnificent cave with their hands. I highly recommend you Google Image search it after class. Red, brown, and black handprints. Thousands upon thousands of ancient people telling all who came after, “I, too, was here.”

Amongst all those ancient handprints stand Hugo and Daniel. The significance of their being there is hardly lost on them.

In fact, it only amplifies the weight of their feelings.

Daniel stands before the ancient wall, fingers splayed over a black handprint left thousands of years ago. The stone beneath his palm is rough, uneven, cragged. Like an old whore’s pockmarked face.

His own hand eclipses it, his skin blending into the shape, as if bridging the gap between past and present. He studies the print for a long moment. Then, slowly, he exhales, his fingers dragging away, leaving the mark undisturbed.

He looks at his own hand, flexes it absently, like he’s testing the weight of something unseen. He lights up a cigarette, smoothly takes a drag.

“You ever think about what it takes to be remembered?”

Daniel turns his hand over, palm up, then clenches it into a fist, slow, deliberate. He glances back at the wall, at the handprints frozen in time, then exhales through his nose.

“13,000 years ago, some nameless, starving bastard—an illiterate caveman hiding from the elements—pressed his jerkoff hand to this rock and said, ‘I was here.’ And now I’m standing in the same spot, staring at his mark, wondering if he ever thought about me. About us. About what would come after.”

His gaze flicks forward. There’s no veneration in his tone, no sentimentality… just a cold, steady certainty.

“You leave something behind, or you get left behind. That’s the whole game. The weak? They get washed away. They leave nothing to be found or pondered over generations later. The strong? They carve their names into history. Or, at the very least, paint them onto stone.”

He takes a final drag off his cigarette, blows it out through his nose, flicks it aside.

Rolling his shoulders, he shakes something off—an old weight, a passing thought—then glances sideways, just briefly. Just enough to remind you he’s not alone.

“Me and Hugo? We already know where we belong. The only question is: do you? Do any of the so-called ‘teams’ in PRIME?

“A strong team is a beautiful thing in the sport of kings, no? Something to be celebrated, treated as the rarity that it is, two souls complementing each other in a display of precision and destruction on live fucking television, truly greater than the sum of their parts.

“But know this… he and I? Together or apart, we would succeed. But first, we have something to prove.

“As brothers.

“Because it’s very simple: no team in PRIME is built like we are—on history, inevitability, dare I say, fate.”

A pause. Just long enough to let it settle.

He smirks, glances down at the cigarette butt on the ground. Briefly, he considers picking it up—historical significance and all. Then he remembers: oh yeah, he doesn’t give a single fuck.

“But you’ll all understand that soon enough.

“Over to you, Hugh.”

Hugo shoves his hands in the pockets of his slacks and looks up at the ceiling of the cave.

“Thirteen thousand years ago, handprints. Archaeological evidence suggests that wave-riding boards were around in Peru some ten thousand years later.” Hugo chuckles to himself. “Somehow, us humans, we've stayed the same this entire time.”

Hugo lights himself a cigarette, holds it daintily between his fingers, exhales a gentle circle of smoke that slowly spreads into nothing

“There are those of us who want to be remembered forever, and those of us who just want to, oh, I dunno Danny Boy, fuck off and play in the ocean?” Hugo smirks. “‘Surf Express Bro.’ A declaration. To surf… uhm, quickly? To nothing important, do nothing great. Just play with wood in some water.”

Hugo sighs and hits the cigarette. “Honestly, the daftness of it is hard to bear. You two, you had a chance once. The same one we have now. But you squandered yours. You fucked off. You played on a beach. And that pisses me off. Not because you squandered your opportunities – I could care less. But because you people have been ruining beaches since at least five thousand years ago!”

Hugo fumes, “Every beach I've ever been to in my entire life, which is probably more than you, actually, has always had at least one bum in a shirt that reads, ‘Namaste,’ trying to catch waves and listen to bad music. Even in Maldives. Even in Seychelles, and Bali! They all have a Bowie, a Bradlee. You're like roaches. Roaches who think Sum41 is good music.”

Hugo grins at Daniel.

“But it's not the sand we want to leave our handprints in anyway, is it?”

No, no it isn't.

As you can see, the boys have a vision for the way their lives will go.

Would you believe I was there at its birth?

Let's return to that night they got “fucked up on Daddy’s dime.”

📖

CEMENTED

The boys stumbled piss-drunk back onto campus, but not until well-past curfew.

I was there, having stayed late in the office. They swayed right past me as I walked towards my modest sedan (teachers had the worst cars on campus), them believing in drunken earnestness that they had managed to sneak by, sight unseen.

I watched as they carried each other across the grounds of St. George's, injured soldiers on a battlefield – and happy as punch about it.

Perhaps you might find it strange, but I followed them, finding it prudent to make sure they arrived safely to their dormitory.

There was construction at the library as a new quad project was ongoing. Though the bulldozer sat limp, cement had been laid, still wet.

And I'll be damned if Daniel didn't catch Hugo just before he fell face-first into it.

“Oh shit!” Hugo shouted between belly laughs. “That was nearly my face!”

“You owe me a new suit for that!” Daniel replied, and the boys laughed together.

Hugo knelt before the concrete and placed his hand in it. Daniel did the same, right next to him. A remarkable bit of human behavior. The desire that drives us to leave something behind, even so much as a handprint. To say, I was here. I existed.

I thought of some graffiti found at the ruins of Pompeii. A couple of friends, declaring their existence, and indeed, their friendship, on the walls. Thousands of years later, on the grounds of one of the most privileged schools in America, had I not witnessed their reincarnation? “We two dear men, friends forever, were here. If you want to know our names, they are Gaius and Aulus.” -Graffiti, found in Pompeii