In
the morning father rouses me for the route. The papers are individually opened and
stuffed with the jaundice colored inserts. Father already has the paper splayed
open like an atlas on the dining room table and is pointing out the county
winner from yesterday. His name is David too, and he is older, holding up a
phone next his lips with a million dollar smile etched into his visage looking
like a professional sports agent on draft day. David has one individual black and
white window reserved for himself, while there is a larger windshield
photograph reserved for the fellow contestants. The article, still is mainly
about Jassman. That he is a straight A student, runs track and cross-country
out in Washburn and starts forward on their basketball team. The proverbial
chiseled all-American studious high school athlete—whose brother, the article
notes, is serving over seas in the Gulf war.
“He’s seventeen.” My father notes.
Four years and a decades worth of maturity and insight older than myself.
Seventeen years old. I think about this as I stuff the papers with their
yellow coated innards—I think about this and muse over the syllables of my
speech as I traipse through the snow banks of West Peoria, skirting down
Sherman, ferrying each individualized paper into the screen doors of my customer’s
house. I think about how the article
said that he was the son of a Pastor at a church entitled Fellowship Disciples
of Christ, tersely musing what it means to be a “disciple” in the area of the
city which has educated me all my life. I arrive home and dress in the white
shirt and slacks mother has washed and folded in origami positions before
ironing. I dress in my black v-neck
sweater and slacks, attire casually reserved for athletes before entering the
front of my mothers station wagon as she coasts down the gray dip of Western
Avenue, into the loose shingled low income huts of the south side below. If I
look into the passenger side window I see what looks like the only reflection I
have ever known, ensconced in the icy blue pond of a winter trapezoid
while the blur blends into the chapped
cement tongue of the sidewalk, the scenery, the loneliness, on all sides of the
loneliness, the cyclopic stuttering’s of the traffic lights, the coming, the
going, the jaded poetry of it all, the distillation of snow heaped and dredged
in diminutive mountain ranges on the far side of the church parking lot, and
the feeling that I am about to go somewhere that will change my life
forever.
As I am shuffling over cosigns and tangents with Ms. Baumen, the
first year teacher whose skirt instills in us fantasies of what is beneath—Miss
Baumen who has a picture of Jesus around the stem of her rearview mirror in her
Honda in the fashion reminiscent of an airfreshener. Kathy Baumen, who Patrick
claims he saw clad only in bra and panties one night after showering when he
just so happened to be innocuously roving his bmx across the winter night green
of Madison golf course very late at night and just so happen to decide to scale
a twenty-foot evergreen tree while having his binoculars wreathed around his
neck. Miss Baumen is lanky, six-two, volley ball player in college. The seventh
grade fueled virgin hormones turning into morning glories, erupting and
sparkling every time she coasts past.
Kathy
Baumen’s slender and she looks at me, dressed in my sweater vest and tie even
though it is not a basketball day. She struts over to where I am seated. When
standing next to her, her waist would come up near my neck—she is wearing a
blue dress which seems to topple from the dimensions of her waist into her
ankles like a feminine fountain of mystery—the dress hovers above the scratched
sheen of the classroom linoleum like a bell, concealing the elusive resonating
clapper inside—Ms. Baumen, her backed turned to the classroom, a tender 22 year
old fresh out of Concordia teacher college, wondering what her body looks like
as she dissipates into the hallway after the last bell rings like a mist, into
the taupe brown cheap-coffee odor of the teachers lounge, into the faculty
bathroom, emerging minutes later in sweatpants and a t-shirt and sneakers.
Wondering what happens to her body at night—the lady, who sprinkles nocturnal
vision of her navel clad by a continent of white below and white perching above
her ribs, below her smile, this creature, standing over me now her silhouette
casting a steeple of tint, an encroaching shadow over my own seated posture,
smiling at me, grabbing my hand, as if she is fully cognizant of the
psychological sojourn I am about ready to embark on—as if her body, the
equation of flesh and beauty configured in perfect geometric angles with her
bosom and elbow and smile—as if she is the port I will leave from as she
squeezes the pallid white bony shells of my hand, her lips letting loose of a
simple smile, her voice reaching the back of my earlobes like a drop of Ocean
ferried in a spring zephyr, hitting the back of my neck, her lips saying the
words “God’s blessing,” her body touching my body, as if by letting go of my
hand she is giving birth to something waiting to hatch inside of me.
I am warm
with my sweater and tie and glasses and black shoes. Mister Teske has collected
Bumper sticker from Lutheran schools from the contiguous United States and
Guam—variegated in color, pinned to the wall above the slit-gray collar bone
high windows. The gray has a sopped dirty mop feel inherited to it which is
somehow relaxing. I turn to my left, look up at the clock before noticing Diane
Best standing like a beefeater in the doorway, a gentleman next to her, calling
my name, beckoning me, saying that it is time for me to go.
There
is snow. Christmas seems like a
childhood ago.
***
Maurice Alwaun is in Brazil so I am
being shepherded to the YOUNG COLUMBUS finalist competition by middle-aged bald
headed slightly overweight yet far from obese affable stranger I have never met
before. He shakes my hand and introduces himself, commenting something about
how Maurice wishes he could be here himself. The Young Columbus day is a
significant working class gala for the district managers to showcase their
finest scholarship carriers. I have my notecards into my pocket. On the front
of the notecards mom has written the words S-L-O-W. On the back of the sheet
she has written out several bible passages. In her fashion I know she has been
praying ardently for the will of God to be done. The man shakes my hand and introduces
himself, laughs as we walk out to his car.
“We have to pick up one of the
other finalists.” He says, listening to the frenzied metal rock on his radio as he
asks me if I’m excited, the car zipping through black snow heap abutting banks of
Peoria, asking me if I’m excited and if I think I have a shot. He informs me
that he’s heard good things about me from Maurice. I indulge to remedial
banter, inquire about his own job. Mostly I lose myself in the mirrored
slightly chalked reflection of my own countenance, hovering through the
window—the car sputtering tendrils of exhaust as if it is direly in need of a
transplanted lung.
The gentleman who picked me up
turns to me, informing me that this is always an exciting time of year. I ask
him if he knows anything about Jassman, the fellows David who won the contest
yesterday. He swipes his head back and forth and says no, then addresses
Jassman as a kid, commenting that the kid sure looked excited when they
announced that he was the winner. The vehicle continues to plow through the
frosty avenues of Peoria, heading towards the north side, to the affluent part
of town.
The car stations itself outside
Washington school for the Gifted on the far North side of the city. All over the
city District Managers clad in bad ties and aged sports coats are guzzling
through yellow lights, parking their vehicles in the awkwardly in schools
parking lot and inquiring to secretaries with Bad perms that they are here to
pick up the student who is dressed as if he is attending a Sunday School
social.
“I’m gonna run in real quick and
pick up the other finalist.” He says. After what seems like fifteen minutes of
myself staring past my reflection into the school that fosters intellectual
growth I see Al walking out with the other finalist. He is wearing a posh sweater
with his sleeves rolled up to the caps of his elbows as if the white of his
forearm is trying to slough a wooly scale of dried flesh. He is wearing jeans
and brown sneakers and Al opens the side door as if he is some sort of teenage
celebrity before slamming it shut before rushing around to the drivers side,
informing me that Dave this is the other finalist Adam. I reach back behind the
embankment of the seat and we shake hands. The biblical inhabitant of the
Garden of Eden being informally introduced to a bespectacled David, hoping his
persuasive speech his mother scribed for him in which she mandated him to give
thanks and gratitude for being will supply enough amo in his metaphorical sling
to persuade the judges into awarding him a trip of a lifetime.
Al claps his hands before twisting
the ignition into life and say okay lets go. Adam strongly interjects with a
wait, I have to go home and change first. Al seems miffed, informs the group as
a whole that we are running late as it is.
“I just live down the street by Glen Oak park. It will only take a
minute.”
Al shrugs.
Adam seems to take forever change,
providing me ample time scrutinize my countenance in the side window once again.
The overhead clouds are a collection of whale shaped barges, occluding any wink
of the a wished for winter sun. Employing my adult monotone, I ask Al a few
queries about what his job entails. He tells me he is the back up DM—that
whenever a district Manager has to take a day off due to vacation or illness,
he supervises their duties.
“Maurice really thinks highly of
you though. He thinks that you have a chance to win this thing, but I suppose
everyone has a chance to win this thing at this moment. Everyone is in the same
boat. It’s all up to the judges.”
“Yeah, “ I tell him. I wonder if it
is snowing in Paris right now. D'amico has been in his house for nearly fifteen
minutes. AL looks at his even though there is a digitalized clock on the
dashboard and verbally wonders what he’s doing in there, getting his nails done?
It has been almost twenty minutes. D’amico comes out wearing
a tie and a suit. He smells like cheap aftershave and recently ironed garments.
Al keeps referring to the Journal Star in astronomical
jargon referring to it solely as the STAR noting that we are going to head down
to The STAR real quick and congregate in the lobby before we head to the
banquet.
Al offers out a smile. I try to make small talk with
D’amico. Having gone to the gifted school on the north side of town D’amico
informs me that he has been studying French since fifth grade and that he is
now in conversational French where the entire class is conducted in la francais.
From next to me I can swear I hear Al curse saying that it looks like we are
running late.
Everything seems rushed.
“Here,” Al says, “We’ll take a
short cut.” Both Adam and I plop out of the wings of the Volvo, following Al as
he scurries up a side cement staircase near the loading dock, behind the
Journal Star.
“This is the place where the trucks
are loaded before the papers go out.” Al says, as we clop up the cement stairs
past the dock where the papers are loaded. We pass two Playboy centerfolds,
tandem, next to each other like mounted taxidermied mermaids.
“No looking at the girls guys.” Al
jests, while blushing himself. We continue to walk very fast as if we are late
for the appointment. Adam is dashing in his suit. I try to compose myself with
ghetto chic, the only standard of living I have ever known.
In the corner of the lobby of the
Journal Star is Mario, dressed in an expensive suede taupe outfit, signature
baggy pants. It looks as if I will be competing against my adversary. I strut over and shake the hand of the
classroom tyrant, trying not to let the fact that he is in the contest mitigate
the seemingly big deal everyone I know has been making about my chances of
going overseas. I try not to envision the reaped humility that would ensue if
Mario would somehow win—Mario who last year pinned me down into the corner
Misses Mooney’s sixth grade classroom while we were in the process of changing
into our hand me down junior varsity blue and frilled white COMET basketball
jerseys. Mario who, along with Aron Bowman, found a shit-stained jock in the
garbage, the sullied undergarments of a visiting team and without
reservation—Mario who pinned me down into the hard enamel tile of the classroom
floor and coronated my head with the sullied jock while the remainder of me
peers stood either listless and straight as planks of fresh lumber or continued
to point and laugh in hysterics. Eric Bushman, the fourth-of-July freckled
cheeked all American feigning a laugh, his chin jutting, jeering his comrade forward in the puddle of my humility.
Mario who won’t stop haranguing
Patrick and Hale at lunch and recess. Mario who stole Patrick’s ten-sided dice
at recess, battering the foam of our imagination as we scale the rungs
of the Yellow monkey bars and vicariously role-play.
I think about what would perhaps
happen if Mario would somehow win. How Mario would taunt me incessantly. How
the school would acknowledge Mario at the end of chapel, as Mario half-waddles,
half-limps up to the front of the altar where I will later take my first
communion as Mario offers apish grunts and menial shoulder shrugs, looking down
into his feet as Mr. Mooney shakes his hand, informing him that he speaks on
behalf of everyone here when he says that the whole school is extremely proud
of his formidable accomplishment before he turns and says that the school
should be proud of me as well, even though I didn’t make the final cut, I was
also in the running and should be equally acknowledged, but back to Mario and
what he anticipates viewing on his gratis sojourn overseas.
I walk up to Mario in the ersatz
potted tree plant lobby. Outside on the bluff
the snow scurrying in such a fashion it is reminiscent of trying to
watch late night porn through cable static.
“Are you D’amico?” The carrier who
looks more like an adult than like a DM, inquires to Adam. Adam is shy,
brilliant but shy, offers out a yes.
It is like no one is quite sure
what we are waiting for. The secretary on the phone is telling some man with a mullet in his mid-thirties that no one just walks in here off the streets and writes for the Journal Star.
She then plants the phone down like a gavel and addresses the carriers and their DM's.
"They want you to go to Cater Inn. The judges are there. They need you to leave right now."
She then plants the phone down like a gavel and addresses the carriers and their DM's.
"They want you to go to Cater Inn. The judges are there. They need you to leave right now."