It is our last day of school before a three day weekend. The last day of the grading period. Grades will be posted next week. It is the completion of the first six weeks of the semester and already my GPA is wounded. I am all but certain to get twin C’s in Peabody’s and Cool Joe Thomas class. I have never gotten a C in my life.   Coupled with my athletic injury Mrs. Peabody has made me all but stop caring about getting off on the no-pun intended tight-proverbially foot while entering the annals of my high school career.

After school tonight we leave for Mattoon. I have not run all week. Physically it is the longest I have gone without running since I was in fifth grade.

Monday there is no school because of Columbus. 1992 is the so-called 500^th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage.  Two movies have already been released detailing Columbus’s sojourn. Both flicks have exponentially flopped. One features a gourdish-nose French speaking Gerard Depardieu portraying Christopher Columbus. Both movies feature new world natives who are topless and displayed as obscenely heathen and uneducated.

 

Coach Manna assays the class up and down. Aron Rothman is still acting up and talking in the back row as he has done every day of the school year.

 

Coach Mannaoni discusses Columbus day with class. The football team is undefeated and

He looks back at Aron who is making Arm pit noises and trying to say that the person in front of him just farted.

 

“Aron, why is it paradoxical to believe that Columbus discovered this continent?”

 

Aron says that he did discovery it. Coach Mann shakes his head. He looks my direction. Coach M always looks in my direction and lets out a smile.

 

“David, please, enlighten us.”

 

I hate when Coach Mann does this. I hate when he puts me on the spot.

 

The classroom is silent. Even Aron Rothman has momentarily suspended torching us with his arm-pit induced sonatas.

 

‘It is fallacy because Columbus really didn’t discovery anything. There was already thriving civilization and different City-structure. A lot of what Columbus discovered he actually pillaged. His proclamation of a new land actually decimated a civilization that by all accounts was flourishing.”

 

Coach M smiles. He says good job. Patrick gives me fighter pilot thumbs up.

Aron looks behind me and says if Columbus didn’t discover America who did before stating Your momma.

The next class is Coach Mann’s. I missed his test as well. I am seething with rage from Mrs. Peabody Cunt.  I am hurting.

Coach Mann has said nothing to me about the missed exam.  The back of the class, under the aegis of Aron Rothman are hurling various objects. Coach Mann is chatting about

  am wondering when I am taking the exam. Unlike Mrs. Peabody Coach Mann has said nothing about my absence yesterday.

 

At the end of the class I limp towards coaches desk.

 

“David, I’ve meaning to speak with you, a word.”

 

I limp to the side of his desk and sit on the vinyl cushiony coach reserved for Curt Curtis, the teachers Aid.

 

I feel I am going to get it. I sit under the last of the Mohican’s poster.

 

“David, how’s your leg? I heard from Coach Ricca that you harbored an injury on the course last week.”

 

I Tell Coach Mann that it is a stress fracture. I tell him that I have been icy my leg for three hours a day .

 

I am expecting him to wail me. I am expecting him to sound like an truculent Vince Lombardi, informing me to suck it up, sailor. I am expecting him to whip at me a copy of yesterday’s quiz and tell me that I

“David I’m so sorry to hear that. I hope that this is only a minor setback in the outset of what is sure to be a formidable career.”

 

“I’m sorry I missed class. Yesterday. I had to go get x-rays. I was wondering if I could make up the test after school today.”

Coach Manm looks at me an smiles. Somehow his smile is inked in variegated valves of light.

“David I’m not going to test you.”

I stop and stutter and say huh.

“David you are always in class in the front row. You always take copious notes and ask questions. Those test are for the pleabs in the back row who don’t pay attention and who will never integrate the history of this planet we all find ourselves a part of into their lives before it is too late.”

 

Don’t stop running. Don’t stop reading and questioning things as well.”

 

I am embarrassed a Coach from a different sport is spending this much time with me.

“One other thing. Don’t miss the ship when it arrives to your port.”

 

He writes me a pass to Cool Joe Thomas class. I am hobbling alone in the hallway. When I arrive

Cool Joe Thomas looks at me.

“Yo Von Behren, you’re late. Where you been at walking around like you own the place?”

Meet #8: Notre Dame

Our next meet is against Notre dame and I am not running. Notre Dame has the tightest Cross-Country program in the Conference. Their assistant Coach Dan Gray won the 15K at the Steamboat classic this year. They have Adam White who is poster child for the Journal Star and is ranked in the top five runners in the state.    My mom always blushes and holds her hand to her heart as if she is saying the pledge of allegiance commenting how good looking Adam White looks while prancing around the course.  It wasn’t supposed to have been like this. Running is the one thing I anticipated more than anything in High School. Since I was ten years old it has served as both my passion and my pulse.

 

The columns of marrow and flesh below more torso tilting, hurting irreparably 24-7.

 

I wonder what I did to piss off God.

I am not running but I walk to the line clapping my hands, goading my teammates.

“Let’s do this yo. Come on man. Southside yo. Southside!!”

 

Beano looks as if I just farted.

 

“Dave man you’re fucking retarded, yo. We ain’t gonna win this meet man. We ain’t gonna do nothing. Our season is tapped, dog.”

Tapped.

 

I watch the race. I ride in the golf course car with Coach. The Notre Dame All-staters form a cluster and a steady pace. Peacock is hanging with him In three weeks Peacock has gone from a modest talent to a Prefonatine mopped headed rockstar in cleats.  The first mile is 4:50. He is running hard. The remainder of the athletes hardly look like they are breaking a sweat.

I am riding with coach. I am helping out yell out splits. Peacock is hanging with the elite runners.

 

“I thought Adam White was going to be faster, Coach.

 

“Sometimes in dual meet they just go 80 percent. Adam White’s 80 percent is better than my 110. They will try to focus on a team win.”

 

I am yelling at Peacock. I am telling him that he is looking amazing. I am goading him to keep fighting.

Even though Adam White is not pushing it he is still running a sub-16 minute time. Peacock has never broken 17 minutes on this course.

 

I see myself in the first race running with Peacock and Jose where we tore up the course.  Notre Dame’s top seven is ahead of our second runner. Hans is coughing it up. He is pushing himself.  He is

 

Beano is dragging way behind. When coach glares at him he holds his side claiming that he has cramps.  When Coach looks the opposite direction he removes his hand from his side and smiles like Pee wee Herman.

Had I not gotten a stress fracture I would have been competing, I would have been running next to Notre Dame’s elite. Have I continued to improve on my hard work I would obliterated the FROSH record. I would have confidence to hang with anyone.

 

Somehow I am levitating off the golf cart, I am attired in my Running Rams jersey. I am tackling the course. I am next with Peacock running with the Peoria elite. Somehow even though I am rising with Coach  I am seeing myself next  to the lead pack. For a minute I see myself pushing with the Notre Dame elite.  For a minute, seated in the golf cart I am floating over the lead pack. I am next to Peacock. We are working harder at maintaining what in Notre Dame standards is a modest pace.  Somehow I am next to White and Donnelly and  Banister on a course which, one week earlier, I set a freshman record by nearly a minute. I am the sum of al the hard work outs I put on the instrument of limbs n beneath my torso. I am pushing the pace. I am reminding Peacock that this is our course and we can’t let these kids from a fucking rich catholic school fuck with us. I am insist that we play coy the first mile. That we throw the surge the second mile. That we display hardcore Southside pride.  That we push faster than they are used to. That we surprise them. That we make a statement so that at Conference and regionals in a couple of weeks there Coach offers a caveat to watch our for Peacock and Von Behren. I am running with Donnelly and Banister and Birkmeier.

We are making the final mile. Notre Dame has it one by number. I go the hole 5 and begin wildly spanking the palms of my hands together.

I am not running. I am next to Coach.

I am invalid. I am resting up for the meet in a couple of day out of town.

My time has not yet arrived.

 “This is it Peacock man this is it! This is your final race. This is your time baby.

Dan Gray runs with his head in gazelle semblance up like he is a wearing a toga and laurel leaves. Peacock is still behind the lead pack. It is obvious that Adam is not going 100 hundred percent.

 “Come on Peacock! Let’s go man this is your race baby. Come on bro this is your race!!!”

 

I am yelling at Randy. I am screaming that he can hang with these guys. I want to live vicariously through him.

“This is your course bro. You can do this shit. This is your course.”

 

I am wobbling. I would give anything to run today.

 

Beano is jogging. It looks like he is dog paddling again. Coach is furious.

 

“Sorry Coach, I have shin splint.” He says, mocking me, looking in my direction. Beano is a silent minute behind where he easily could be.  I can see Coach swiping his head back and forth in disdain.

 

“He’s fooling around. I could bench him but then he’d miss  Mattoon but if I don’t we wouldn’t have a team.”

 

Coach looks back at me.

 “Even though you are injured what I always admire about your race is that you always give everything you have.”

 I tell him thanks. Coach asks me how my leg is. I tell him the after school practices in the pool are helping. I tell him that I am still icing my left three hours a day.

"Just keep on doing that. We are rushing your recovery but I don’t want you to miss Mattoon. You ran at a Varsity caliber all season. You earned it.”

 

I tell Coach thank you. He nudges my shoulder.

 

“Chin up.” He says.

 

Chin up.

 

 

Peacock is behind the elite runners of Notre Dame. Still a caboose.  They have a strong kick. Notre Dame finishes 1-2-3. Peacock is four. Out of nowhere Hans Logrotto has the race of his life and finishes sixth. The rest of our team finishes outside the top ten.

 

The whole team seems lackluster. The team in its entirety seems to be running underwater.

                                   

At the far end of Madison Park I see a familiar car, There is someone wearing a hoodie and a flannel jacket over it. I am hobbling. The rest of the team is running back down to Manual. Although Peacock didn’t win he proved he could hang with the best in the conference.

 

I look again and I swear it is Jose.

 

This would have been his last home meet as a senior.

I walk out of the locker room with Hans LaGrotto. I look at the time on the board and my botched shot at immortality.

 

All I can see is the outlines of my face reflecting back at me.

 

All I can see is nothing at all.
.

Umbros and Algebraic dreams...

Seven hours earlier I am limping to class. I am excused form early bird PE. I go to the pool and simulate like I am running. I wear my umbros. Often I wear a pair of sneakers,. The swimming instructor Mrs. Bruington is impressed by my dedication. She inquires if I ever considered swimming as a sport.

 

“No, I’m a runner. I like to thrash across the land.”

 

I go to first hour I am limping. I have an orange note from the office stating I was excused the previous day because of a medical appointment. I am to show the note to Mrs. Peabody and Mr. Mann since those are the two classes I mussed the previous day when I was getting my leg x-ray.  I had quizzes in both classes. Mrs. Peabody was ionizer algorithms. Coach Mann was over Machiavelli.

 

Mrs. Peabody’s class started out with fifteen students. We are down to seven.

 

I have been getting into it with Mrs. Peabody ever since last week when I asked if I could come in after school for help and she called me a snooty jock, insinuating the the world did not evolve around my itinerary.

 

She accepts the orange slips and looks at it like a traffic ticket before initialing it.

 

When the bell sneezes I walk up to her desk and inquire when I can re-take yesterdays quiz.

 

“I’m sorry. You were absent.”

 

I was excused. I had a medical procedure. I was excused, I have a note from the office.”

 

“The teacher excuses you not the office.”

 

“That is absolutely not true.” I tell her. She respond by telling me that she is sorry but she is afraid so.

 

“Look, I  had to get an x-ray yesterday. It was a medical procedure in which I had to miss most of my morning classes. I had my mom call me in and she cleared it with the office that I was excused.”

 

Mrs Peabody doesn’t have to be like this.

 

“I have a cast, I can hardly walk. I had a medical procedure which I spent with my math book studying. I should have an opportunity like everyone else.”

 

She is being a bitch.

 

“It’s not like one quiz was going to change your grade all that much. You are getting a Dplus. With the curve you should get a mid to low C.”

 

I have never gotten a C in my life. I want to call her out. I want to call her a bitch. A cunt. A piece of Pythagorean numerical detritus.

 

I think about how in the introduction to the text it says that algebra comes form the Arabic meaning a reunion of broken parts.

 

It feels like every part of me is broken right now. My leg. My heart. My ambitions. My future.

 

My dreams.

pool...

Coach thinks it best that I take the week off from running and heal. Coach thinks it  that you just rest your leg for Mattoon.

I want to tell Coach that I don’t care about Mattoon. I want to tell coach that all I really care about is trying eclipse my cousin’s record.   I want to tell him that even if it is the last race I run for a year I want nothing less than one more shot to circle tautly manicured trigonometric circumference of Madison golf course one last time.

Because of a medical note  I get excused from early bird PE.  Every morning instead I go down to the pool where Mrs Bruington keeps her office.  Every morning I shower and step into my Umbros and lace up and old pair of Reebok sneakers. Every morning I lower myself in the pool and begin performing laps in the three feet end, running 50 meters, against water, sometimes carrying ten pound dumbbells in each hand.

I am trying to get healthy. I am trying to arrive in that  place where I know I should be.

Sometimes a Mexican student who looks like Rosie Perez helps Mrs. Bruington out. Mostly I keep to myself. I fifteen laps in and then hit the shower. I still hurt.

 

The pool is located directly across from the record board.

 

I try not to think about my cousin’s Fresh record and how, because of the injury, I will not be able to annihilate on the course even though my time at the Morton invite would have easily

After school I go back to the pool. Some of the female swimmers and practicing even though their season doesn’t star for a number of weeks. Mrs. Bruintgon is really cool. She comments my work ethic.

 

Coach thinks I should be ready for Matoon, which is three hours away.

 

After practice I sit in coaches office.

 

“My body might not be a hundred percent but my mind will be.”

 

Coach smiles.

 

“Hey, I know you are really bummed about what happened but just remember this. You are a freshman. You clocked some amazing times. You have three more years ahead of you. It’s better that this injury happened right now than when you are a senior and you are running at a more elite level.”

 

 I nod. I am frustrated. Part of me wants to go home and run. Part of me always looked at running as time to vent emotionally, to empty all the craziness and confusion and hurt and dreams.

 

In a way I feel like the Young Columbus all over.

 

In a way I feel l like I have failed.