This is the year everyone is telling me that they are praying for me. Chuck Ames tells me he is praying for me. My mother and father have been praying for me; the demure eyelids of my mother bends into the knobs of her kneecaps every night, supplicating to her personal spiritual inflection of the Christ, requesting earnest guidance, requesting that the son of God answer her request and grant her son access into part of his creation he has never before seen—asking God to give his son visual access to the radiance of His creation.
This is the place he wants to go—the place he wants to be, the person whose flesh he is trying to inhabit, he thinks to himself one final time as he glances down into the manicured ink of his mother's handwriting on the note cards rehears in the final intonations of his speech , remembering the personal anecdotes he is expected to tell again. Everyone has been praying for him. His godmother Mrs. Wreight, who has been praying for him everyday of his life, shepherds him down to the only Institution he has ever know, because he goes to school early to ring in the bell choir, because he has been spending more time in the bathroom, his vision lost in the glass rectangle where he can see the arrangements of his hair.
They are praying.
As was the case last year there are to be two Journal Star winners, one from the county and one from the city. The county one traditionally goes first but due to inclement weather and six-inches of snow the county contest is postponed until the following day. If I do win the trip to France I will read about winner Saturday morning in the paper.
As with the previous year I stand in front of the full length
mirror in the music room rehearsing the mechanics of my speech into a life-size
reflection of my image trying not to remain to overtly cognizant of the fashion
in which my hair is sculpted, trying to refrain from optically wading too
deeply into my image, the imprisoning shadow of my glasses casting a skeleton
model-t carriage like penumbra reclining
on the slope of my nose like a saddle.
They are praying.As was the case last year there are to be two Journal Star winners, one from the county and one from the city. The county one traditionally goes first but due to inclement weather and six-inches of snow the county contest is postponed until the following day. If I do win the trip to France I will read about winner Saturday morning in the paper.
They are praying.
Mom holds out a tie that has already been pre-configured into a pentagon-shaped knot by my father. She has ironed and starched. I tell her I am wearing a turtleneck and the sweater I got last Christmas.
I’ve spent the last two weeks working on the opus of my speech. I know it better than the back of the hand which sometimes finds itself unconsciously planted between the ashen peninsulas of my thighs late at night.
They are praying.
“I want to wear a turtleneck.” I note. “And the sweater I got for Christmas.”
“You look so nice in a tie.” Mom holds out the tie again. I feel like telling my mother I am fourteen years old. I feel like telling her that I am capable of dressing for what I purport would be success. The Jackson Pollock variegated swirl of my sweater almost reminiscent of menstrual blood—a holiday hangover cranberry color vest of warmth.
I place the notes of my thoroughly rehearsed speech in my side pocket.
She wishes me good luck.
I turn back at her and smile.
Everyone is praying just for me.
***
As with the previous year the secretary Mrs. Best arrives at the side door of the classroom telling me that I am excused for the day and that it is time to go.
Near the office I see my District Manager Tom Otten. He is smiling. We shake hands like adults.
When I sit in Tom's vehicle he informs me that we are going to have to pick up one other finalist. I think about Adam D'Amico from last year and how it seemed like it took forever milling outside his affluent house with my surrogate DM.
"We just have to meet him outside his house. We are car pooling with his DM. He's a good kid. Goes to Woodruff."
There is still two feet of snow banking the sides of the road.
Near the office I see my District Manager Tom Otten. He is smiling. We shake hands like adults.
When I sit in Tom's vehicle he informs me that we are going to have to pick up one other finalist. I think about Adam D'Amico from last year and how it seemed like it took forever milling outside his affluent house with my surrogate DM.
"We just have to meet him outside his house. We are car pooling with his DM. He's a good kid. Goes to Woodruff."
There is still two feet of snow banking the sides of the road.
A few blocks south of Woodruff there is a man in a
trench coat standing next to a lad in a high school varsity jacket with the
words cross-country on the back. Tom pulls over to the side of the road and
invites them into the back seat.
“This is Nick,” Tom says, introducing the gentleman
in the trench coat, who is a fellow DM. I reach out and shake his hand.
Tom looks back at me and smiles. I have met my first
competitor. Tom’s car swivels and
performs a you-turn in the center of the street. Directly behind me Nick says
that it looks like we are off.
Let the races begin.
The room is still being created by the time we arrive at the Cater Inn, china
plates and overturned coffee cups stationed on clothed tables in meted fashion. We
are the first to arrive. Kelli Rude is welcoming guests near the door wearing a
sweater that looks like it was regifted over the holidays,
pointing to the buffet table where all the nametags are placed, this year with
our names already on them. On the far end of the table there is a punch bowl
with twelve pre-ladled plastic cups already filled with some sort of sherbet-frothy
non-alcoholic concoction. Kelli tells me she remembers me from last year and
shakes my hand and then points in air-line stewardess fashion in the direction
of the punch bowl. I am next to Di
Gregorio. So far we are the only finalists of the 36th Young
Columbus to arrive. I talk in a voice as if I am getting pumped for this. I get excited. I take an elongated sip of my
punch w/out making any sort of slurping sound whatsoever.
It is a different atmosphere this year than last. I
am more gregarious. I instigate conversations.
I smile.
A man with skin so tanned it looks like rotisserie chicken and a
slight mullet enters the door and shakes Kelli's hand with a girl who comes
up to his waist wearing tights and a checkered skirt and sporting a cropped
haircut with bangs dreamily brushed into the drywall of her forehead. Kelli
makes the similar welcoming motion and points them to the table with the name tags and the
punch bowl.
The girl looks shy but has a smile that might be classified
as benevolent and fleeting if caught exchanging transient glances between
subway stops.
Her DM who selected and accompanied her to the banquet
seems to have a haircut and skin tone that is synonymous with Miami and is named Mick. I shake his hand
and introduce myself as well. Behind me Kelli is continuing to introduce
incoming finalists, each entering the building with their respective DM’s like brides maids..
I talk with Marie. She has taken three years of la francais
at Limestone. I think of David Best attending the same high school, slovenly
practicing his French in between jazz band rehearsals to anyone who will
listen. I think about the picture of David’s girlfriend Renae Holiday and how she looks
like some kind of Parisian model attired in her almost lioness outfit in the
homecoming picture inside Mrs. Best secretarial office.
“I know the
French teacher at Limestone.” I tell Marie, “Well, I don’t really know her on a
first name basis. She used to live close to Bradley park and I had a friend who
was really infatuated with her daughter Riley. He used to ride his BMX up and
down the avenues of her street nonstop day and night just hoping to have a
glimpse of her until she came out on the porch, and threatened to call the
police and then cursed him out in French.”
Marie smiles. Di Gregorio is looking around. Several other
finalists are now milling protectively close to the punch bowl. The light is hitting the snow outside in such a way
the earth looks like a tub of bleach. Every time the door bats open a
frigid exhalation of cold air ejaculates into the room. Their bodies arrive
like stippled slants of morning lights, arriving through the twin red doors
with ricocheting spangles and awkward glances, the door being ferried open by
their district managers as those we will be vying against. Students who have
each worn their Sunday Best—students who will have to make up the hours they
miss from class. Several shy lads in
suits arrive. I look around and note a
boy with a buttoned up shirt and mangy orange hair, recognizing him as Patrick
Lidell, my friend Patrick Mcreynolds other friend named Patrick from childhood whom I met at a birthday party. We
both recognize each other immediately.
I continue to be gregarious. I continue to be witty. I make a crack about how delivering papers over the tundra this morning felt like I was stranded in the Hoth section of Empire Strikes Back.
I garner chuckles.
I shake his Liddll's hand like he is some sort of goodwill ambassador. I tell him it is good to see him again. He seems nonplussed. He inquires how Patrick McReynold's is doing. I tell him fine. I tell him we were just talking about how Patrick used to idle outside Riley Love’s old house on Institute all day before her mom went after him with a rolling pin.
I garner chuckles.
I shake his Liddll's hand like he is some sort of goodwill ambassador. I tell him it is good to see him again. He seems nonplussed. He inquires how Patrick McReynold's is doing. I tell him fine. I tell him we were just talking about how Patrick used to idle outside Riley Love’s old house on Institute all day before her mom went after him with a rolling pin.
Patrick Lidell laughs. He tells me that he is at Calvin
Coolidge. I ask him where he is going to high school at next year. He tells me
Central.
“Patrick and
I are both going to Manual.”
Patrick Liddell
lets go of a look as if to say that aren’t you worry you might get shot down in
the south side with all those hardcore gangbangers.
"It's not that bad. I've gone to school in the Southside all my life."
Patrick nods his head in concurrence but gives me a look as if to say but still.
I look around assaying the competition. Brent Ellison has
returned from last year but that is about it. The mustached titans who so
daunted me from the outset of last years' finals have all but dissipated. Several
of the kids are older but they look really coy and soft spoken. Everyone seems nervous.
So far, only Tony and myself are the only ones who are smiling. The permeating
sense of anxiety is still butter-knife sluicing thick. W.iththe exception of
perhaps Di Grgregorio I feel like the speech I have so assiduously rehearsed can
hang with about anyone.
I look around. Karen Christmas is nowhere in sight.
I look around. Karen Christmas is nowhere in sight.
I continue to look around the room. Trench coats are doffed and hung like fresh suicides on the rack near the crimson doors where finalists arrive. There is a whistled lisp every time the door opens and clamps shut, followed by a thick stream of arctic breath. as additional finalists continue to filter into the banquet room in waves, each finding the alphabetical emblems of their name on a flimsy sticker and then slapping it pledge-of-allegiance style below their chin. Arms are extended like enjoining W’s offering salutations and introductions. So far the only female in the group is pint-sized Marie. So far Karen Christmas is nowhere in sight. Two lads with the same haircut enter the room and appear to know each other from church. Kelli greets every contestant with the same trinity of repetitive hand gestures, pointing to the coat rack, the name-tag table and the punch bowl before telling them to enjoy.
.
I make it a point to shake hands with the adults I think may or may not be serving as the judicial gavel, the distinguished panel of judges, the arbiter palm in whose unanimous verdict the oversea trip lies grappled and crunched like a fist protesting the erection of a runway over a strip of recently demolished lower income housing. I think about city manager Peter Korn from last year and how he sent me a letter wishing me all the best. I make small talk. I go through the motions. I nod. I try to be witty, all the while rehearsing the mechanics of my speech over and over in the oily carousel of my adolescent brain like a round.
There is the stifled farting sound of muffled winter
attire being unzipped, the intermittent chime of the ladle being dipped into
the side of the glass punchbowl in ¾ time.
I continue to look for Karen Christmas. She is
nowhere to be found.
Instead behind me to my imminent left I see John Strickler.
John Strickler who goes to the church across the street from my cousins' on Airport Road. John Strickler, who dates hot girls even though he wears glasses and speaks in whispering haikus. John Strickler who never acknowledges me when I want to talk to him. John Strickler whose younger brother David will later be one of my best friend's in high school and will introduce me to tobacco.
“How’s your church?” I ask John Strickler. “How is your
youth group?” I inquire again, thinking about the youth group outings we go on
every few weeks.
“Find,” John says, tersely, like he dropped a compass in his
homecoming date's vagina before turning a complete one-eighty, a slight swivel
found in the step of his loafers that is almost a comical half-spin talking to the
nearest Young Columbus finalist, deeming
me too unfledged perhaps because I am not yet in high school.
Karen Christmas is nowhere in sight.
Karen Christmas is nowhere in sight.
Every time I endeavor to make eye-contact or anything that remotely resembles small talk with John Strickler he acts like he has no idea who I am or why he should descend down the social rungs and pretend he actually knows me. I strike up an awkward conversation with a lanky red haired lad who resembles Gumby in a tie. One of the candidates has already been to France on a mission trip with his church last summer and after months of soliciting donations can’t wait for the community to pay for his next trip gratis.
Feeling dejected by
my so-called Christian brother I circumnavigate and idle next to Tony
Di Greggio who is smiling as if he is in an International Male catalogue.
“I saw on
your jacket that you run cross-country.” I say, trying to sound mature. Tony
responds back in the affirmative.
“I’m mostly
track .800 meters. But I run cross country to keep in shape. It’s solid
conditioning."
Tony says
the word conditioning as if he is talking about issues related to shampoo and shoulder
dandruff. I ask him what his fastest time was. He said last year it was 1:59.
My eyelids seem to form dual tents of astonishment at his time. I note that the
800 hundred meter dash is an all out-sprint. I note that it is grueling. I note
that it is one lap and then the gun before cutting into the closest lane and
vying for position down the final stretch.
Tony seems impressed at my edification of Track and Field.
So far we are the only finalists wearing a turtleneck although several lads
have shown up sans tie.
I am seriously beginning to think that I just should have sucked
it up and worn a tie.
Tony asks me how I know so much about Track and Field and if
I run the 800 at the parochial meets at the school I attend.
“I mostly
run the mile.” I tell him, telling him that I have been running competitively
since I was nine, telling him that even in the winter, I try to run every day.
“I went to
state last year in the mile only I didn’t place. I never broke 5:30 as a
seventh grader."
I tell him
I am really looking forward to running cross-country in the autumn at Manual.
“Watch out for Munoz,” DiGregorio says. “The Mexican kid
with the flat top. Munoz is raw. Manual has a good team. They have a real good Coach. Ricca. He's faster than most of the kids, hangs with the top runners in the state."
I tell him I can't wait, mentally going over the later half of my speech in my head.
The meal is scheduled to begin in ten minutes. Karen Christmas is still nowhere to be found.
***
She enters the banquet dining room wearing her white coat the color of the season. She looks like Botticelli
decided to lay down in the high-frost altitude of the Italian alps slapping
his arms and engendering a snow angel in slight rococo flutters.
She looks ravishing.
Her forehead is the color of wedding cake frosting.
Her hair lushest honey-dolloped bolls of hay lost in a Monet countryside
vignette. There are three of us now from last year. Myself, Karen Christmas and Brent Ellison. We know whose hand to
shake. We know who to interface with. We know how the itinerary of the program
and where to sit and can more or less surmise from a glimpse at the bobbing
nametags what order our speech will be given.
As I walk towards her I feel a gravity, as if I am
being reeled into the area code of her subtle smile.
I take another step. I am still oblivious as of what to say. Karen is wearing the same flowery dress she wore last year. She is hovering above the linen table near the door, plucking the syllables of her name off the top of the table and pasting it above where I can only surmise is her heart.
I continue to amble in her direction as if in a wished-for daze.
I think about communicating to her in what menial
French I know. I think about saying Bonjour or salut.
Two and a half steps away I come to the cathartic
realization that I really only have to tell my fellow Lutheran competitor one
thing:
That last year, her speech fucking rocked.
That she
should have won.
I am less than a half-step away from Karen Christmas when Kelli Rude steps up to the lanky chrome stem of the microphone-- the same microphone we will employ as our emotional crutch stating why we feel the gratis trip to France will enrich the narrative youth of our existence and states that, while one judge has yet to arrive, the dinner portion of the contest is scheduled to begin so we should all find the table with our names in front of the plate.
***
Ironically I am seated that he round table with the
exact humans I have spent the bulk of the day socializing with. I sit next to DiGregorio. Liddell is two
seats down. Tom is seated next to Mick.
Twice Mick has already picked up the list of the young Columbus
finalists vying for the contest and twice he has pointed at pint-sized Marie’s
name as if betting on thoroughbred deeming her the winner.
The salad arrives in icy triangles of lettuce and
grazed cheese.
It seems odd that I am at the table of castaways. It
seems odd that everyone is socializing at the other table. There are two vacant
seats. The judge who is late is purportedly local WMBD DJ John Williams, the most conspicuous local judge on the panel.
He asks Tom
if he caught it and Tom swipes his head no.
Mick makes a sound like he is ruffling newspaper headlines over the airwaves.
“No man. This whole thing is something else. I didn’t think it would be like this at all.”
The main course arrives. It is pork slathered in cinnamon gravy with mash potatoes gently flecked with sprinkles of parsley.
Midway through dinner DiGregorio turns to me:
“I had no clue it what be like this.”
“Like what,” I say.
“Like this formal. It’s like an end of the year
sports banquet.
Mentally I am still dividing my speech into chapters
behind the lid of my skull.
“I didn’t know it was a formal occasion. I didn’t write
anything down.”
He smiles and says he guess he is just gonna have to
be like post-Beatles Paul McCarthy and like ‘Wing’ it.
Tony then turns to me again and says he had no idea the
dinner would be like this, stating that he was expecting a cafeteria setting
and a lunch tray.
Mick interjects, telling good looking Tony not to worry.
“When Marie gets back from France in 12 weeks she’ll
tell you all about the fine cuisine.”
Don’t count my client out.
Two tables over I see Karen socializing with a judge who is the marketing director from Northwood's mall. John Strickler is seated at the same table as Karen Christmas and appears not be socializing with anyone with the exception of his fork and knife
as if the Journal Star would vouchsafe the sojourn of a lifetime on him based on servile mannerisms alone.
***
By the time dessert is planted in front of us ,
chocolate moose served in a botanical shaped chalices the renown DJ finally arrives.
Kelly shakes his hand upon entering the door. He apologizes for his truancy.
Apparently due to the banks of snow a DJ was late arriving to the station. As she has been doing the entire ceremony Kelli points into the direction of our table, where the popular DJ is to be seated. Williams makes a native American 'how' sign with one hand and rubs his stomach with the other as if he is playing charades informing Kelli that he is not hungry. Instead of waltzing to the table bearing his nametag he circumnavigates to each of the six other tables, shaking hands with the fellow judges and making small talk with the contestants. The last table he stops at is where Karen and John and a trimmed haired lad named Tad Tinker are duly seated. He shakes hands with the marketing director from Northwoods mall. He shakes hands with John and with Tad. He spends what seems like an elongated minute chatting with Karen Christmas nodding his head three times in a row.
The moment he turns towards our table Kelli again taps into the top of her microphone with her thumb, telling the contestants that now that dessert has been served and the final judge has arrived the competition can begin.
The moment he turns towards our table Kelli again taps into the top of her microphone with her thumb, telling the contestants that now that dessert has been served and the final judge has arrived the competition can begin.
Just like my attempt to say hi to Karen Christmas, my endeavor to introduce myself to the most notable of the local judges has failed.
After each judge is introduced there is a round applause. Kellie states alphabetically the name of the first contestant who is to lead.
The skinny red-haired kid who looks like Gumby is the first to go. His speech is solid and contains a welcome a la francais. Di Gregorio is second. Tony seems not to have prepared a speech. He gets in front
of the mass and smiles and begins to talk ad libbed about how he became a paper
boy on a whim and how he enjoys helping other, His talk is solid though its not a speech. He thanks the audience and the judges for listening and wishes his fellow competitors best of luck in this contest.
Most of the speeches seem to follow the unwritten mandate
about talking about their experiences about being a paperboy and how it has
constituted their overall character and disposition in life and what they would
culturally derive if they somehow would be awarded the recipient of this
sojourn.
The lad who went to France last year with his church talks about the historical richness of the continent but fails to mention anything about being a paperboy whatsoever.
John Strickler keeps his notecards in front of him like a
music stand and classical sheet music. He is quiet and makes eye contact with
the audience all at once before bowing his head into the direction of his kneecaps for the duration of his speech.. His testament is very short and polite,
devoid of any humor. Apparently he has always had a passion for Impressionist
art. Tad Tinkers has a habit of talking into his kneecaps. So far if I were to
judge the two best speeches would be pat Liddell’s and DiGregorio who didn’t
even have a speech, just more or less thanked everyone in attendance for their
time.
There are three contestants last. Mick's protégé Marie, Karen and myself.
Because my last name starts with the fifth to last letter of the alphabet I am the last to go.
Marie’s speech is solid, although she glances down
into the flashcards of her speech perhaps more than necessary. She states a
anecdote about fallings asleep on the corner while waiting for her papers to be
delivered.
For the
second consecutive year I feel that I have a shot.
Brent Ellison, once again, makes a salient point to note that he has used the funds he accumulated on his route to purchase several Yugo’s.
Brent Ellison, once again, makes a salient point to note that he has used the funds he accumulated on his route to purchase several Yugo’s.
I look at Karen Christmas. There is no paper bag behind
her chair. Last year she had the best speech by far.
Her florid dress seems to drip off of her shoulders and into
the floor.
Because my last name starts with the fifth to last letter of the alphabet I am the last to go.
As was the case last year, Karen Christmas is immediately before me.
There is no bag behind her this year. There is something numinous and outer worldly in the
way Karen Christmas floats to the microphone stalk. It seems like she is
hovering, the flowery-dappled dress billowing above her ankles giving her the
semblance that she is levitating. In a different milieu she would be mistaken
for Christ-like vision of Dante’s
Beatrice, the eternal muse bestowing an aureole of white light and peace
towards the supplicating kneecaps of those who yearn but today, as was the case
last year, she is directly ahead of me, presenting a speech on how being a
paper girl has positively impacted the narrative pulse of her life and how, if
she were chosen to represent the carries in this area as an international ambassador to France, like her route it would greatly augment her scholastic development and career goals..
She seems less sure of herself this year than last. Her
pasty cheeks and forehead seem to keep looking down, her eyelids fluttering as
if backstroking back up. There is one witticism about her parents being dubious
about her having the route and how she implored them that seems to rake up a
few pyres of chuckles.
She ends by thanking the judges. It's not on the same caliber as her speech from last year.
In way, her speech sounds like a memorial for someone she loved more than life and now has to tuck into the comforter of the earth.
Her speech is gentle and edifying and graceful.
Ina way it sounds just like a prayer.
There is applause after her speech is punctuated. It was solid. While it wasn't on the same caliber as her ingenious speech from last year it is easy the best so far.
I am next, the last to go.
She ends by thanking the judges. It's not on the same caliber as her speech from last year.
In way, her speech sounds like a memorial for someone she loved more than life and now has to tuck into the comforter of the earth.
Her speech is gentle and edifying and graceful.
Ina way it sounds just like a prayer.
There is applause after her speech is punctuated. It was solid. While it wasn't on the same caliber as her ingenious speech from last year it is easy the best so far.
I am next, the last to go.
I open my speech by introducing
myself to the audience, informing them of my name and the grade I am in and the school I attend. I hold
my note cards in my hand down near the orbit of my waist but seldom look down.
It is like I am an emcee getting ready to improvisational standup shtick. Unlike Karen or Marie or John Strickler who
read his entire speech from his notecards in the listless fashion of being
asked to read the epistles during a Lenten church service, I do not look down
once. I talk with my hands,
gesticulating as if inviting the audience to accompany me on a chronicle about
how I became a paper boy. I talk to them how ironically, it was Columbus day
weekend two and a half-years ago where I opened up a copy of the Journal star
and found a Xeroxed placard seeking a newspaper boy in the area. I try not to
think about Kelly’s speech last year where his nose seemed to drip the entire
time as he tried to cozen his father into letting him take a shot at the route
as I share with the audience my own anecdote about swaying my parents into
allowing me to have one. I get the
audience to chuckle several times when I deliver my preconceived notion of a
paperboy being that of a boy with a baseball cap and a bike errantly tossing
thoroughly scrolled-scepters at pre-dawn suburban welcome mats. From roving my
head in an almost periscopic fashion I can see that several of the judges are
bobbing their heads as if heated kernels ready to bloom. I can see John
Strickler looking down into the patent leather top of his shoes.
I look at Karen Christmas trying to make eye-contact with her only she is still acting aloof and almost renaissance-fair eyelid coy.
I look at Karen Christmas trying to make eye-contact with her only she is still acting aloof and almost renaissance-fair eyelid coy.
I continue on with my speech.
I share with them the foibles of my routes. I tell them
about the time that I feel through a street ditch that was frosted over and how
I bobbed in four feet of icy water and then reeled myself out and ran home,
drying off before continuing on with the duration of my route. I tell them
about being irreparably chased by the neighborhood Rottweiler’s. I tell them
about the time last summer where papers were being stolen and how several of my
customers planted fake “decoy” papers in order to catch the purloining
verdicts.
I share all this with them and then I impart how the route
has taught me responsibility and how it has taught me to be courteous.
I look around the room. John Williams, the local DJ who in
three years from now will leave Peoria and have his own AM radio show broadcast
from the top of the Sears tower in downtown Chicago is smiling. Patrick Liddell and DiGreggio seem to be smiling
and assenting as if they can concur.
Throughout the speech I try not to look at Tom, knowing only
that I can somehow feel his smile on the side of my face.
I continue on with my speech. As a shout out to my mom I
tell the audience the route has been a blessing and that I thank God for
having the opportunity to be a paperboy.
As with the year before, my thoughts then transition to
France. I talk about Paris in Spring. I
talk about the Louvre and the Arc de Triumphe. I talk about how I am
anticipating taking French in high school and that I am already signed up for
summer classes. As far as I know I am
the only candidate who makes rote mention of the 92’ winter Olympics in
Albertville France come two weeks time.
I talk about just as how the paper route assisting me in becoming a better
student how, if I were to be picked to
represent the journal Star on this trip would ameliorate my understanding of international
affairs and help foster my global citizenship.
I again thank my district manager and the judges for the
possibility of this exciting opportunity.
I thank the judges for their time. There is a pause and then
the crackle of palms splattering as if portending a tempest of joy.
As I sit down I see Tom across the room. He is smiling.
***
We take Grand View Drive with castle-like houses culled from the prohibition era overlooking the river in majestic penumbras. Tom and the fellow DM sit in front while I it in back with Digreggio. The fellow DM notes what happens next is that all of the judges confer and argue and eventually come to some consensus before coronating a winner while we are ferried back to the journal star and given the perfunctory tour and handed our plaques and accolades and commended on doing a job well done and told that even though we are all deserving to go on the life-altering ten sojourn only one of us can be chosen before waiting with almost Oscar listing-nominee for best performance and looking around and wondering if somehow the syllables of our appellation will be heard.
My speech was perfect. I didn’t rush. I looked around the
room. I nodded my head. Unlike Karen or John or even Marie
I made eye-contact with the heads in front of me inviting them to participate
in my campaign. My supplication. Inviting them to picture me in front of the Centre Pompidu and years later, gratuitously thanking them for what a profound privilege
and unalloyed honor it was to represent this periodical and my area code
overseas, evincing to them what a profound influence that trip has had over the
discourse of my life and how it made me a better human being. I sociologically
interfaced successfully with each of the judges during the non-cocktail
cocktail interim prior to dinner and giving the speech.
Tom looks back at me twice as if he knows something. There
is a smile. DiGregorio will be a senior come six months and I will meet him on
the grassy knolls of cross country routes easily defeating him, not realizing
until I see his name in the paper afterwards that he was my competition.
It is snowing. The color of the snow matches Karen
Christmas's forehead, it is like if I can make snow-angels appear above her eyebrows all the world she would smile.
Our vehicle wends down the serpentine hill near the Star. I
wonder if the judges have agreed. I wonder if one wants one candidate more than
the other. I wonder if one is adamant, vying for my name, stating that even
though I am only in 8th grade, I still gave the best speech.
I still seem sure of myself.
I still seem sure of myself.
We arrive at the Star our car skidding into thick banks of
snow form the seminal blizzard the day before.
I wonder if I squint if I can somehow make out France. I
wonder if it is snowing in Paris near the Arc de Triumph right now. I wonder what the interior of Charles
DeGualle airport tastes like. I try not to think about myself lost, meandering through
the ivory-latticed arteries of the Louvre and just plain falling in love with
every adorned and gilded framed relic staring back at me.
I wonder what the
expression of my mother’s visage will resemble when I phone her up inside the
Journal Star after having my name announced.
This is the year where everyone is praying for me.
I wonder if I am close.
This year the customary tour is not atomically split and we
traverse the interior of the Star as one.
There is no vying amongst the contestants as there was the year before.
Everyone is congratulating everyone else. I feel that I nailed the speech. I
did the absolute best I could do. I didn’t rush. I made eye-contact.
We continue to walk.
Patrick Liddell, the childhood best friend of my closest
friends tells me that he thinks my speech is the best.
Karen is not looking at anyone. Her countenance is snowflake
shy. Just as I rehearsed the year before I begin to mentally tabulate who would
be in the top three. Even Marie’s speech seemed to be lacking some meat.
Karen’s was nowhere near the same ball-park area code as her speech was the
year before.
DiGregorio the cross-country savant informs me that he
thought my speech was good. John Strickler is still ignoring me, standing
aloof, not talking to anyone at all.
When it is time to pose for the Finalist picture I sit in the front row, on one end
with Karen Christmas on the other. Because the photographer doesn’t want to
inadvertently shoot up the petaled hem of Karen’s dress, he suggests that she
sits Indian pre-school criss-cross applesauce yoga style. There is much anxiety
and shoulder heaves amongst the contestants. The year before each of the
contestants were awarded their plaques first before the photo shoot. Now, our
bodies form vertical raft of organ pipes, jostling limbs as the photographer stations
the skeletal femurs and emaciated thighs of the tripod before quickly waltzing
up to both John Strickler and myself, instructing us through an orchestration
of tactile fingers on cheek bones gestures that we should hold our countenance
a certain way to prohibit the utilitarian silhouette our glasses casts across the
drywall of our respective faces from being spotted in the daily news.
We are herded into the conference room where we will each be given plaques and the Young Columbus winner will be crowned.
***
Inside the cigar humidor shaped conference room Lyle Anderson, head of Circulation is standing over the stacked plaques like a
mortician over a half-dressed corpse. Once again the plaques are placed at the far end of the table, stacked in the fashion of an altar awaiting the arrival of the sacrificial lamb. Each of the plaques has our names already christened onto the front of it. The winners plaque is on the bottom of the heap. It is twice the size of the plaques awarded to the other finalists and is lying facedown as if it had drowned on the oak of the conference room table. On it is the name of the carrier who will later be ushered across the topography of the planet, on the bottom, as if holding the fellow awards in place. The names of each recipient are announced alphabetically, each recipient routinely hovering up to squeeze the palm of Lyle Anderson.
The mandatory taper of perfunctory applause accompanied when each finalist receives his/her plaque sounds more like a stuttering Chinese water torcher than spring rain.
Alphabetically I am the last to receive my plaque.
Alphabetically I am the last to receive my plaque.
This the year everyone is praying for me.
For what seems like the twelfth time that day Kelli Rude
once again reiterates just how proud the journal star is individually of each
of us there can inly be one winner selected to travel to France in the next
three months.
There is once again a silence as Lyle looks down into the
winners plaque, clears his throat announcing the name of the thirty-sixth young
Columbus winner, commencing his sentence with the words and the winner, is.
The City carrier winner of Young Columbus 36th has been decided.
****
The City carrier winner of Young Columbus 36th has been decided.
****
A nanosecond before his lips split, Lyle’s nicotine-coated tongue can be found
kicking behind his teeth forming a stolid crunch constituting the virgin
syllables of the winner’s first name a gnawing desuetude drips over the
foreheads in the room.
There is a wallowing silence that is palpable and stings.
There is a wallowing silence that is palpable and stings.
In this nanosecond, this juncture of quantum pauses, a molecular bouquet of fractals
before the
name is revealed everyone in the room is game.
Patrick Liddell and Tony whose last name sounds like a chain of frozen
Pizzas. Marie who gave an insightful speech but, like John, pretty much just
recited half-memorized letters verbatim from the starkly tip of a notecard. It could be Tad Tinker or the kid who went to France last summer or Brent Ellison or two of the kids with the same haircut who go to the same church.
Suddenly it appears that the only other person who
perhaps put as much effort into preparing her speech is the creature with the
pasty white skin and pulchritudinal halo
refining tresses, the creature who by far had the most superior speech last
year. Somehow I knew all along that it would be like track, that the moment the
flint crackles into a stampede of jostling limbs everyone has an equal shot to
win. That the some of the contestants would start out too fast, some wouldn’t
be able to handle the distance. Some would hang with the lead pack for the
first three laps.
Some would bow out and not finish the race.
The conference room still smells like stale coffee brewed sometime during the early Reagan administration.
The conference room still smells like stale coffee brewed sometime during the early Reagan administration.
As Lyle’s lips press out the name of the recipient who
will be traversing overseas like a backwards kiss, somehow I see the Young Columbus
contest being a retrograde 1600 meter run and somehow, as if being cursed with
hindsight I know that in the last 100 meters there would be two left, vying,
elbowing, sprinting in an all out frenetic dash towards the latitudinal tape of
the finish line which somehow resembles a runway at Charles DeGualle airport
come 12 weeks time, flooded by youth from the contiguous US being ferried
across the dip of oceanic swills like the news bulletin they deliver every
morning w/out fail.
Lyle lips are contorting in slow motion, forming a
pentagon, an inward bite, a budding half-scowl resembling a metro-station
entrance and somehow I knew all along that there would be two of us left,
perhaps within a nan-second of each other, perhaps crossing the tape
simultaneously, perhaps warranting a review in the officiating booth, perhaps
looking at a re-play over and over again to declare who won.
***
“It was the toughest job I’ve ever had.” John Williams will state in the Journal Star come one
week time, talking about his role as judge for the 36th annual competition.
***
Unlike Kelly the year before who pumped his fist up and down as if he has just hit the game winning half court hail Mary prayer of a shot in a pick up game where the fourteen fellow finalist played a sort of intractable zone defense and somehow the shot fell in, Karen is the complete converse. Her smile is weak, her eyes seem to look past the orchard tapestry of her dress as Lyle extends his palm. Her bangs brush into the side of her face. Her braces seem to catch and reflect the light in the room.
There is applause.
Karen seem almost embarrassed when she is presented with the additional oversized plaque, her chin and vision focused into the top of the table.
Her face, the color of a three am sun on snow in early January. There is no smile. Only a nod. She seems timid as the other candidates accost her to shake her hand. Marie is the first one to turn to her and smile. Patrick and Tony also wield out their arms in her direction. Karen seems to have her eyes in my direction. Almost as if she feels she has violated someone. I push a smile into my lips as if I am opening an umbrella during a light drizzle.
"Congratulations," I say, tersely holding her hand, the first sentence I have said to her all day.
Along with Mr. Yugo Brent Ellison who remembers her visual aid
from last year , I have struck out for
the second year in a row.
The bubble of
candidates are beginning to grapple the top of their coats, winging it around
their necks like capes. There is a look of disappointment sunken in the brow,
lips offering a perfunctory grin and adulations in the direction of the winner. Karen is escorted to an enjoining room and handed a phone, presumably to call her progenitors with the good news.
As I look back I see Karen Christmas with her head slightly tilted talking into her neck, the back of her flowery dress facing my vision.
I continue to walk, looking back, until the body of
Karen Christmas, recipient of the 36th Young Columbus becomes an
exiled key-hole to the garden of Eden then a voyeuristic hinge then a lost pebble then a
static blur and then, while being chauffeured in the blob of Tony and Nick, she
dissipated completely, gone to a place I have never been before.
A place
called France.
***
Tom says he can go ahead and drop DiGregorio off home. He
seems wowed by the plaque. He lives close to Woodruff. It is 2:15 in the
afternoon. Once again, going back to school would be futile with less than an
hour left.
“Hey yo Nick man. Did you sign me up for this contest?”
His District Manager concedes. Digregorio looks at his plaque
again as if he is scrutinizing his hair in a side pocket mirror prior to a
yearbook photo.
“Thanks man.” He says, giving the semblance that perhaps he
never really considered the gravity of the contest, the fact that if he would
have put more hours into hemming the oral mechanics of his speech he would
currently be being briefed on applications for passports and studying French
via learn-at-home cassette.
The vehicle comes to a halt in what is presumed to be Di
Gregorio house.
He thanks Tom again for the lift in the snow. I offer my
hand in fervent adieu much like I offered my palm in ardent salutation three
hours earlier knowing that somehow, through the discourse of the dinner, each
one of the nominees envisioned their name being heralded across the smoky din
of the conference room in JS star.
“It was a pleasure meeting you,” I say, to pretty boy
Di Gregorio
“Good luck with track this year. “ He says, “And with
cross-country. Remember, watch out for Munoz. Munoz is a beast.”
“I tell him
I will” I move up to the front seat. My district manager drives me home. Snow
seems to fleck in every direction. The sun almost breaks out as if with beak
and feathers.
I look at my plaque and hold it in a vestigial fashion like
I am playing disc golf trying to make par.
***
I smile at Tom. I tell him that, being older, I’m sure Karen
somehow possesses the insight and acumen to appreciate the trip.
Tom is
humble. He smiles.
“I honestly
thought your speech was the best. I honestly thought you were going to win this year. Maybe it was because you didn't get a chance to talk with that DJ guy. Who knows.” He
says, in a way that teems with almost wistful-eyed candor.
He then tells me he's proud of me.
He then tells me he's proud of me.
As with the previous year there is no one at the house when Tom’s car sputters and releases me on my front steps. As with the previous year I seem all alone. As with the previous year I seem to jangle open the front door and wonder what are neighbors must think being two-and-a-half weeks after epiphany and why our plastic Christmas tree still remains unplugged and stranded in the corner.
I’m not disappointed. Somehow I had the best speech. Somehow
my speech dwarfed the others in comparison. Somehow I was in the top three.
The snow from the blizzard is still a specking the side of
the house. The sun is out in an almost painful yolk. It is not like last year.
I didn’t let anyone down.
I didn’t fail.
I didn’t let anyone down.
I didn’t fail.
I turn enya on the stereo and wait for my mom to arrive.
She gives me a hug
and asks me how I am doing.
I tell her I am fine.
I tell her I am fine.
“I nailed the speech." I tell her. “My speech was perfect.
Everything was perfect. It was the best that I could have done.”
At night the rotary phone
emits a squealing swan-song migraine inducing clang and either father or
mother will press the plastic receiver
into the base of their jawline as if they are complaining of oral detriment and
it will be grandma and or dad’s best friend Chuck or Aunt Joanne or someone
else who had mentioned that they were praying for me and I will remain ensconced
in my bedroom randomly pressing buttons into aquatic shaped sega genesiscontrol pad in front of me orchestrating the diminutive cyber-avatar into
hiccupy blips and plosive leaps on a digitalized incessantly reeling fairy tale slate before
me, marshaling him through multiple worlds.
From inside my bedroom I can hear my youngest sibling
inquire to my mom why her big brother didn’t win the trip for the second year in a row.