Race # 12 Sectionals

 

Dad takes myself and Hans LoGrtto to the Sectional meet. All five runners running from our conference I have beat at various times droning the season, including Peacock.

I can still feel Renae’s lips on mine from the night before.

 The sectional is at East Peoria When we arrive we see Coach and Peacock. He is warming up. He is ready. Hans and I both walk over to him give him a hug and wish him best of luck.

Hans seems like he can give two shits He looks tired. Hans is a year older. The class of '95. The class Mr. Reents swears by. The class that is purported to have scholastic promise and flare.

I am a freshman. I am trying to impress Hans.

"I had a date last night man. I’m dating this really cool girl from Limestone. She’s beautiful she’s amazing." 

I hold the picture for hand. He looks at the photo of Renae. He squints as if optically scrutinizing a film negative.

“You’re dating her?”

 

“Yeah, she’s my girlfriend. I mean, she kinda dated a buddy of mine for a while last year only I don’t think they were all that serious. He’s more of the suck helium out of the homecoming balloon and make funny voices type.”

 

“Dude, dave, that’s your girlfriend?”

 

Hans says as if he thinks I am not capable of sating a creature of such grace.

 

“Dave, you hit that shit?”

 

“What?” No! For some reason when Hans way the word hit I think he is talking about physically abusing her.

 

“No I mean, do you guys have sex?”

I am shocked. I want to tell Hans that I am  Christian. I want to convey to him that I don not believe in premarital sex.

“No, I mean, we just started dating.”

 

Hans grabs the pictures and holds it up even though it is a gray day outside.

 “Dave bro that is one beautiful girl man. That is one beautiful girl, Dave. Very impressed man. ”

I am still thinking about Renae from last night. I am still thinking about how her lips felt. I can still see her closing her eyes gravitating towards my face.

I try not to think about her naval or the ruffled foam of her panties.

The green Gideon bible is in my front pocket.

 

The race is about to begin. 

 

 The race is ready to beginning. Our sectional is raw.He is fighting. Central is there as a team. As is Metamora, Richwoods and Notre Dame as well as power houses from Bloomington. Schools we normally don't compete against. There are a stream of runners. Akin to Detweiller East Peoria course is two and half loops. It is damp. The weather can almost best be defined as being morose.

 

Central gets dogged, At the two mile mark I find myself cheering on Sheep Dog Boy who only weeks earlier I clashed with because he made a racial slur about our Hispanic Captain. Adam White and Tim Broe battle almost stride by stride the entire race. The captain of Morton's squad is not far behind. Peacock is battling. 

                                                  

I am cheering Randy on. At the second mile I stand next to Coach Ricca. I ask Coach if he thinks Randy has a chance.

 

He needs to move up more. I am cheering Peacock on. I have not run all week. I am waiting for my body to heal.

“ I am screaming out his name, I am telling him go Peacock.  I am telling him that this is the last mile of his high school career. I am mandating that it is now or never. Peacock has a steady lope. It is a grueling course on an unforgiving day.

 

I am yelling at him to fly.

 

As if a precursor for the state meet Adam White finishes ahead of the pack. A cool kid with long hair Bloomington finishes in the top six. Peacock runs his fastest time of the season. It is 16:24. In retrospect in it only about six seconds faster than I ran in Morton, only Morton was flat service.

The first thing I do is that I met Peacock at the back of the chute.

I give him a hug.

There are four other individual runners who finished ahead of him. He finished ahead of the entire Central pack. He is four runners shy of participating in the state meet.

Coach is smiling. It is Peacock’s fastest time on grass.

“That sure is a helluva way to finish out the season.”

I am not thinking about what would have happened had I been healthy.  I am not thinking that I was kicking Peacocks ass in practice and that the first meet I had the lead destined to trump my cousin’s record until I took a wrong turn.  I am not thinking about how last week I got beat by Leatric who I have schooled every race.

I am thinking that next year myself and Logrotto will return and the two of us will be faster and we will lead the team. 

“You did it brother.” I tell Peacock,

 

I look at Hans.

"Next year this is going to be us brother. Next year we are not only going to be here but we are taking the entire team with us. Next year."

“Dude, if I were you I’d be all over that girl in the photograph. She is hot as shit. Fuck next year, tap that shit tonight.”

It is Halloween and it looks like it could snow.

 

 

At night I can’t stop looking at the picture Renae Holiday gave me. I can’t stop thinking about her how I can see the outlines of her bra through her white shirt in the photo I carry around with me everywhere I go.  I can’t help thinking how it looks like a uneven bars that maybe Kim Zmeskal would fling and oscillate her petite limbs around.  I can’t help but think what would happen it if would unbutton her blouse, starti8ng at the neck, each button plopping out of its respective slit like pricking a freshly planted seed from the soil of the earth

 

How she will look like a mermaid with her shirt off.

 I think about trying to peel open the lid of my bedroom window fall inside the frame when the college girls are undressing next door.

 

I am going to watch Randy compete in Sectionals.

 

After that I have church on Sunday.

 

 

 

I can't stop thinking about her lips.

I wonder when I will see Renae again

second hoceky game (ie, first offical date...) with good ol' David Hale..

                           
   

The Limestone gang is going to another Rivermen game. This is our first meeting as an official bona fide couple.  I arrive with Hale early and wait for Renae and the Limestone gang to show up at the box office. I don’t want my parents to know that I am dating. I tell them I am going out with Hale.

Hale seems irked. He doesn’t want to be here.

“These guys go  the same high school you do. They're cool people. You can make friends.”

“Limestone really isn’t all its cracked up to be trust me. “

Hale says that he has made quite a few friends via the Science Fiction and Aviation club.

“Dave, please. I really like this girl. She’s really special.”

“I don’t know why you just could not stay with Dawn. I really liked her. She’s really special. We always had interesting conversations.”

Hale asks if I ever speak with Dawn. I lie and tell him no even though I feel compelled to call her whenever something seemingly profound in my life transpires.

“Maybe you can give me her number and we can hang out sometime.”

I try to be a bad ass. I try to deliver a monologue that is poignant and bad ass and after-school-special like look Dawn was then and Renae is now.  I try to tell Hale that there is no way I can give him Dawn Michelle's number since the last time I called her mom informed me that she was no longer living under her parents roof so to speak Hale stops and says that Renae is also here.

I look she is walking towards me as if on stilts. She is smiling. I wonder if we will kiss tonight.

We greet each other with a little hug.

This is our second hockey match. It is the first time we have our a bona fide couple.


She is with Laura and Kristi and Amy. Tim is walking behind. For some reason Lee wasn't able to make it to the Hockey game tonight.

"Everyone this is my best friend. This is Hale."

Both Laura and Amy are polite offering nice to meet you. For some reason Renae seems aloof as she extends her smooth palms out and shakes David Hale's hand and then I remember that she was aloof the first time we met.



As we enter the arena we are holding hands.
   

                                                                      ***

Renae is dressed to kill. She is wearing a green holiday-portending turtleneck. Her turtleneck is tucked into her waist. She is wearing tight jeans. My glasses are still in my pocket. I am wearing my cool boots. I am wearing a retro jacket I filched out of my father’s closet before I left.


We are walking to the same location we sat at the previous Rivermen game, near the top of the arena where we can spread out.



"Wait, I have something for you."

Reane reaches down into he front pocket.  Her shirt flies up like a drape or a clacking end of a movie reel. I can see her naval., It appears to be winking at me.

For a minute I see her body. For a minute she is doffing her fins.  She punches her right hand hard into the side of her jeans. As her fingertips bite down I see the top of her underwear. It is white, with white lace ruffled at the tops. Pure cotton.  The center of my body seems to running into a telescope. When reaches down, pinched something and reaches back up. I can no longer see the top of her underwear. I have an erection sprouting like a tilted pinwheel on the side of my leg. I am paralyzed.

 

She has no clue what the subtle orchestrations of her subtle limbs are doing to my anatomy.

 

“This if for you." She tells me.

 

“I know you really wanted a picture of me. This is from last week. Sorry all of my classmates are in it. It's from a fashion show we did in French class.

In the picture she is wearing a white shirt. She is seated. Her hair looks like is has just been tussled by the sun.

I tell her thank you.  I press my lips into her forehead as if I am smelling a dutch rose I can somehow see Renae’s eyes squint into a close while her lips lift her entire face into a smile. It seems hard to believe we are now a bona fide couple. I wonder when our first make out session will indeed ensue.
I try to sit down as if the thwart my erection.  I slip my hand around Renae’s back.  In front of us skaters pirouette and grind into each other on a slate of ice. This is our first official date.  We sit toward the top of the stadium. The green turtleneck Renae is wearing seems like the most beautiful top I have ever seen. I take my glasses out of my top pocket, put them on for two minutes, note the score of the game, look at the beautiful creature next to me, pretend I am near sighted and look at my watch before flipping my glasses back off and placing them in my top pocket. Tim is reticent and still-jowl two in the row behind us.  He is wearing what appears to be a fishing cap glasses. Apparently Tim and Kristi have been what I will learn as “on and off  again” for the past four months and Tim gave Kristi some weird adolescent proviso that if she runs out and goes off crying again in the middle of the third period the relationship is over.

In the first two minutes the opposing team from Milwaukee had scored three times. 

We are a couple now. We hold hands I keep kissing her forehead. I tell her that it is good to see her again to which she volleys back the same.

 Hale is a third wheel. He is seated to my left three seats over. I am trying to get him to socialize stating that these are his fellow classmates and Hale obviously responds that he pretty much more or less just hangs out with people in the Sci-Fi club.  When Hale gets up and tells me he is bored he's getting some nachos or something Reane tells me that she didn’t know what good old David Hale has to join us.

“He’s my brother. Besides he goes to  your high school.”

Renae smirks.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I like being with you. We’re couple now.” I lasso my arm around her shoulder.

We are an official couple. This is our first bona fie date.  We are watching the Rivermen get so massacred it looks like the ice is the color of blood.

With my arm around her shoulder I grope her fingers.

“I like being with you.” I tell Renae, telling myself that I need to take this slow.

She responds by saying the feeling is more than mutual.

She attacks my hand, giving the fleshy asterisk of my fingers a little squeeze.

Laura and Amy are in the row  in front of us.

The election is this coming Tues.

Renae says that she doesn't follow politics.

 

When Hale clambers back up the steps he begins to take loud slurps out of his x-tra large soda.

Renae looks at me as if she is bemused.

The opposing team score again.
                                                                            ***

            “You know it doesn’t matter.” Renae says,

            “What?” I add, trying to sound perplexed.

            “Your glasses,” she says, insinuating that I am somehow self-conscious about my mien, which of course she is right.

            I begin to blather on about how I only need them periodically lassoed around the curves of my ears to read. Although she at times appears to be a moveable blur I can perceive the pulse of her smile drips off her face before regaining an aura of seriousness.

            “I like being with you. My friends all like being around you. The glasses thing is just no big deal at all.”

            I smile.

 

Laura is in the front row. Hale is seated a seat and a half next to Laura.  There is always popcorn and soda.I try to make a motion goading Hale to hit on Laura. Renae is like no. She makes a comment that she wishes Lee were here because he would end up entertaining Hale.

 

The date is by all accounts a fiasco. He keeps saying he is bored, blathering on about how he can call his sister and he she can pick us up early so maybe we can go out and do Maid Rite and a Move.  My arm has been draped around her the entire date it has lost all circulation. I can’t move my fingers.

Unlike last time Kristi has not moved once.   Tim and her seem to get off giving each other the silent treatment. It feels awkward. I probably shouldn’t have invited Hale.

As the Zamboni is sweeping the ice Hale says that we really got to get a going. He stands up. Renae says that if I like I can wait around and then Laura’s mom will give me a ride home. For some reason I feel that I at least owe it to Hale to hang out with him for the rest of the night.

 

Hale is pelting me again over the shoulder that we need to go. That we are going to miss our ride.
 
“I’ll call you this weekend.”  I tell Renae. I squeeze her lithe frame.

I go to kiss her forehead.  We are facing each other like plastic caricatures on a stale wedding cake. This is high school. My lips are a missile aiming for her forehead. I like this girl. I am trying to take it slow.My glasses still lodged in my side pocket like a portals of prayer my dad keeps with him wherever he goes. My right arm finds itself  looped around her shoulder. I reel the top of her forehead in my direction and plant my lips on her forehead, almost in the fashion I did with Anastatia, spontaneously, in a fit of ardor and longing, four months earlier and the next thing I know Renae is marshaling her neck, she is standing up on her the bridge of tippy-toes like four year old trying to get a sluice of water from a park water fountain on a sweltering summer day. Her lips somehow end up finding mine. It is our first kiss.

It is terse. Her lips are wet. They are minty.  My glasses bump against her left breast.

 

I am trying hard to impede getting another erection in public.

 

I am going to kiss her again when from behind me I hear Hale.

 

“Dave, let’s go, we’re going to miss Becky.

 

I turn to Renae. We smile at each other and say goodbye.

 

We are waiting in the bottom of the Civic center, Hale sister has still not arrived.

“Dave man, I don’t get, we could still be hanging out the Renae.”

Hale says that his sister is going to be here any minute anyolsdway.

I tell him Dude, we’ve been waiting for half and hour. Hale shrugs.

Hale says that he doesn’t like Renae because she always ignores him when she sees him in the hallway.

“Well if you want to hang out with Dawn here’s a quarter, go ahead and call her although she won’t be home because the last time I tried calling her two weeks ago her mom answered in tears and told me that she didn’t live with them anymore.”

Hale is quiet. He asks what happened. I tell him I don’t know,

“She was partying a lot and coming home late. We were talking sporadically and I always enjoyed our conversations as well and then last week I called and her mom was in tears and apologized. For all I know she’s living in a box outside the Salvation army. I don’t know what happened to her. You’re just gonna have to accept the fact that I’m with Renae now and that she’s rather important to me so I’m sorry if you just want to reminisce about old times.”

 

I pad my front pocket thinking it is the pocket where the picture stowed.

 

I am tapping the top of the Gideon bible.

 

I realize I am taking a lot of my frustrations out on Hale. I am venting.  I am pissed about my season. I am pissed that this is my first official date and it ended awkwardly. I am pissed that tomorrow I am watching Peacock in the sectional and I got beat by runners I have dogged all season.

 

I look at my boots. Without saying anything I kick the side of the phone booth.

 

I scream out the word fuck.

Hale is quiet. Then he points. He says that his sister just swerved up in the parking lot to take us home. When she asks how the game was Dave says boring, “Dave just spent the whole time making out with his girlfriend.”

The election is four days away.

 

                         

 

 

Boots...

They are the pair of boots that are simply bad ass. They correlate with the Harley I envision having before I graduate. The black and mock-leather and ride up mid shin like a skateboard ramp. In the center of the boots is a silver socket with three leather straps extending all directions.

Even though they come from payless. Even though they are thirty dollars.  When I am collecting and I wear the boots everyone asks me if I bought them at Christian Bros in the mall.
 
Sometimes I lie.

I am still limping from a season of failure. From spending the latter half of the season performing laps in the pool.  I should be taking it easy. I am still walking with a half-limp. With a stutter to my gait.

Rneae and I are to have our first official date this Friday as a couple.  I wonder if we will kiss. I haven't kissed anyone since Dawn Michelle and after we embraced she acted like I gave he genital warts on her heart.

I invited David Hale to join us since these are kids he goes to high school with.

 

When I get my boots on I feel older. When I wear the boots I feel like things are happening.

It feels like there is nothing I cannot do.

 

 

 

 

It is our first phone conversation as a bona fide couple.

 

I call Renae up, When her mom answers the phone I say hey little girl, is your mommy home? Debbie Holiday knows its me. She days my first name like Mrs. Cunningham say the name of my father on Happy Days.

I can hear her cupped the receiver with one hand telling her mom to get out of the room.

 

She answers the phone by saying Hey you. I can tell she is smiling. Over wires her voice is splashes on the side of my face like hitting.

 

“Just wanted to see how my girlfriend is?”

 

Again is feel her blush. She tells me that it was good to see med Friday night. She says she was surprised.

 

“I’m really sorry about all the drama you went through with David. You know, my dad was just joking around with him on the phone and he just takes things so seriously all the time.

 

Reane asks about my cross country meet. I tell her that my season is over. I neglect to tell her that I went out and ran naked around the contours of the golf course the night that I felt we were a couple and then somehow we weren’t.

Renae tells me again that the gang is getting together again this Friday night.

"We have tickets for the Rivermen game again. It will be good to see you."

I tell her the same.

Before she hangs up I tell her hey and then wait.

"If you get a chance get me a picture of you. I want to have something to look at and think about when you are not around."

From the other end of the phone I feel her smile before she lets go.

 

I should call Renae up informing her that my season is over.

 

Instead the only person I can think of to call is Dawn.

 

I dial her number half-way before I realize that she moved out and I have no clue where she is living. I have no clue it she is really alive.

 

I call Renae.
 
I call my girlfriend.

When she picks up I say hello.

Race # 11: Regionals

 

We only have six running in Regionals. Next to Limestone we are the smallest squad.  Beano seems completely disinterested. Quaynor keeps talking about how he can’t wait to run 400 hundred in track. Leaatric has been improving every race, knocking almost two minutes off his time from earlier in the year. Only LoGrotto, Peacock and myself seem to glean the significance of the perform-well-or go home ultimatum.

 I am jumping up and down. I am shaking my leg as if it is potentially flammable.

 

 
 

The first five teams and the first five individuals not on an advance team go to Sectionals.We are almost all eliminate from advancing in the first five teams. Coach has pulled me aside, telling me that, even though I am in pain, if I run the way I ran in Mattoon there will be no problem.
 
 
 
Just stay with Peacock.  Stay with Peacock as long as possible.

 
It is an overcast day at Detweiller. As is his custom father approaches me, shields me with his arm and tells me God give me a new race.

At the start of the race I give a hug to Sheep Dog boy. Central will be fighting hard for the shot to advance.  I am pogoing up and down. I am taking deep breaths. I am clearing me mind. I have a girlfriend now. I am officially dating Renae. This is my incentive to succeed. After my first movie with Renae five Fridays and another lifetime agop. I ran my fastest time of the season a day later.  This is my incentive to take myself to the next echelon of greatness.

I can do this.

 

 

 

“Let’s do this,” I say, even though I limp. Even though I don’t know what’s happening to my body. Even though our captain has jumped ship. Even though I can’t stop feeling that we seriously owe Coach something for how cool of a guy he is and how we are just not living up to the potential we had the first time we ran en masses through he g galloping hills of Bradley park.

 

 I try to rally and say lets do this for Coach.

 

Beano looks at me and starts laughing.

 

“Your fucking nuts man. Your fucking nutz.”

 

He tells me that this is the south side. He asks me what movie I am quoting.

 

 

We are lined up. The snout of the gun faces the direction of the autumnal overhead.  There is a snap. We take off., a cluster of limbs pounding into the concourse headed for the first turn. An openness floods before us. Somehow it was only June two seconds ago and I was just meeting my teammates and running in Bradley park for the first time, meeting Jose while memorizing my lines as Charlie the anvil salesman. Somehow I am running reliving the past four months with every stride. Somehow visible in the flashing triangles my legs make as they strut in front of each other is Anastasia Blake and Andrea from French class and Madame Breton and Depeche mode. Somehow there is Bradley park and running three times a day and waking up at four-thirty to do my paper route. There are watching the college girls next door take off all of their clothes and rattle their torso and do things with their bodies that I never thought was possible. There is music and Friday nights and looking at Renae in the hush of a movie theatre and wondering what she tastes like inside. There is Patrick who never shuts up and who is my closest brother at Manual and cool Joe Thomas who has taught all of once and the unbridled deference I share for  Coach Mann and all his wisdom. 
All of this is visible in the keyhole flashes found between the patter of slashes between my legs. Peacock is employing his method where he ducks and skulks and looks lees like he is running and more like he is trying to sneak into a club while being underage.  In the first mile I am in the top fifteen. I am running next to Peacock and centrals lead.  My leg feels like it has its own agenda. My leg feels like it is about ready to sever from my lower torso and tornado across the verdant green of Detweiller park.

I try to go faster only I can’t. My right leg has so much bandage around it it feels like I am a mummy. I am pushing. If I need to advance this it to be the race.

I stay with Peacock the first mile. After that I realize I went out too fast. After a mile and a half there is nothing left in me.

We are headed towards the triangle. I am still next to Peacock.  I am scowling. I have a grimace. I am running as hard as I can.   As he enters the triangle the back of Peacock’s head floats further in front of me like a thatch of helium balloon recently released at memorial service. I am trying to keep up. ON the second segment of the triangle I run next with three Central runners. SheepDog Boy is lagging behind. It feels like they are pushing the pace. I stay with them the last side of the triangle crossing over the bridge into the main vector of the course.

At the two mile mark my leg is turning into ash. I have out willed the pain. I am not letting the pangs of my injury effect my mind even though I am gnashing my teeth in a home-birth sans pain narcotic fashion. The three central lads.  I know if I stick with them I am almost certain I’ll finish in the top five individuals not on a qualifying team.

 The straw head of Peacock occipus floats further ahead. He is having the race of his life.  I seem him make a turn towards 29. I am battling back. My second mile is 11:50. I have lost steam. I am fighting. Coach is clapping his hands. Dad is telling me that this is it, that I am still in contention. Just to give everything left in me.

 

Somehow through the oscillating slashes of my legs I can see Kim Zmeskal welling up tears in Barcelona last summer. Somehow I can see Frank’s cock swaying like a clamp in a church bell, Hans Logrrotto strutting around the locker room, his uncircumcised unit hanging like a damp overturned morel. Somehow I see Dawn grab both of their units and begin to tug on them like she feels she is trying to milk an overly active creature of bovine genus.

Somehow as hard as I try I am falling back. Somehow people are passing me. Somehow I see the back of Karen Christmas accepting the Young Columbus award I see myself walking out of the journal Star, another year all alone.

Somehow I have no clue where I am in life, on the terse corporeal stint at being. Somehow the one thing I was able to do is being denied me.

 

I keep on pushing. I am swearing inside my skull. I am not letting my impediments slow me down.

It only occurs to me midway through the race that maybe I should waylay a Richwood’s harrier and candidly inquire if he knows a fellow senior at his school by the name of Dawn Michelle and if he somehow knows if she is still alive. 

 

There is a kid from Woodruff who looks vaguely familiar who passes me. I drowned all of Woodruff earlier this year. I am falling back. I have nothing left inside no matter how hard I thrust the lower paddles of my body into the surf of grass beneath.  

I am running in tandem stride with the lad from Woodruff. There  are two centrals runners rounding out their top five. A jersey from IVC passes me. I am trying to keep up. As I look next to me I see Leatric. He is running light on his feet. He says nothing as he passes me.  I am trying to stay on his heels. He is running light. Woodruff is 20 feet ahead of me. As is the maroon coastline the rest of central’s team. I start to surge. Leatric has a runner’s gait that looks like he is floating on a water skis. I am right behind Lee. I am pushing up at the chute. Looking ahead I see 17:46. I am pushing. I am gnawing. Lee starts pushing as well.

 

When I get to the finish line I don’t topple over. I push my way through. I am limping. I am refusing to fall down. I am walking in little staccato jilts.

 

Lee turns around.

 

“Damn man, I never thought I’d be beating you.”

 

I lance out my hand and tell him hell of a run.

 

With the exception of central Invite when I couldn’t move this is the first race I have finished out of the top two for our team.

 

Behind me I feel a push. It is Logrotto. His goal was to break 18 minutes.

 

He succeeded.

 

I stagger off walking in the direction of coach. I am not thinking of my pain. I am only thinking that somehow I have failed once again.

 

 There is all the confusion .

Kids from Richwoods and even Woodruff who I killed earlier in the season will advance to Sectional.

Apparently Richwoods have two freshman phenoms who didn’t start running until this semester who are no clocking in the lower seventeen minutes.  They look like gilded poster child for the Aryan race. They both have blonde hair and braces.

They didn’t start running until the first week of the season.

 

It makes me feel like I have wasted my summer running three times a day.

There is a runner from Woodruff who is a sophomore who looks familiar who I beat in the first race of the season but is now chronicling times where I easily could be.

 

I finish three places behind the final qualifier. I run a respectable time, just below 18 minutes

My season is over.
 
Afterwards Coach tells me that he is proud of me.

“David, I know you had a hard race. But I’m proud of you. You did what you had to do.”

I nod. My leg is burning, I am limping. I wonder why this has happened

My cross-country season is over.

Only Peacock will be advancing. I have been the second place finisher all year since Peacock started accelerating only this race I finish third, behind Leatric who accumulates a PR.

“I can tell you are in pain and that you really struggled through the last mile.  I wonder if I would have been faster had I not streaked around Madison golf course the night when I was listening to Tori Amos salivating over the college girl next door.

I miss the cut off to run with Peacock in next weeks Sectionals by two runners.

It hurts.

Coach continues to have a smile planted above his chin.

He calls me gentleman.

“I know you were hurting the last race but you did everything you needed to do. You were a warrior today. I couldn’t be more proud.”

 

Peacock had the race of his life. He is advancing.

My season is cashed out.

It has been two weeks after Columbus Day and still there has been no announcement about the 1993 Young Columbus competition.

None whatsoever.
 
None at all.

 

                                                                               ***

After Regional Hans and I start a ritual. It is when we are cleaning out our lockers. It is when Coach is telling us good season. Hans and I start the ritual of saying goodbye. We fold up our sweatpants. We return our cleats. Coach has everything tabulated on a notepad in his office. I strip my locker. I take down the picture of the world’s fastest miler. I take down my picture of Kim Zmeskal.

 

There is a sweat sour scent that always permeates the chamber of the locker room along with cumulus of steam.

 

We only won two meets this season. Still we did better than the soccer team.

 

I place on flip flops and walk naked to the showers one last time.

 

We are saying goodbye to all this.
 
"Well Dave," Hans and I both look down. We are not crying. We are saying goodbye to all this.
 
We are saying goodbye.