Current
Issue
Fall 2026 / Volume 13.1
Mark Overmeyer
—
Troy Jesus, 1989
I sign in as Troy Jensen. No one gave their real name back then. We worried about what they might do with our medical information. The nurse behind the counter gives me a survey, a clipboard, and a pen. I sit at the end of a row of plastic chairs in the waiting area, crowded with other men. This is not a bar. We try not to look at each other.
Troy Jensen was on my basketball team in high school. My locker was next to his. His long Jesus hair never got in the way of him making the perfect jump-shot. We weren’t close friends or anything. We just said hey or nodded to each other. Acknowledged a good shot or block. Brushed past each other on the way to the shower. Once, my shirt fell off the top shelf in my locker and he picked it up. He smiled and said, here I think this is yours.
Mark Overmeyer is a writer, teacher, and editor. He worked as a public school teacher for more than 25 years and has published three titles on the teaching of writing, including When Writing Workshop Isn't Working and What Student Writing Teaches Us. Mark consults in schools and districts across the country and offers creative writing workshops to middle school kids every summer in Denver.
