Central Lions are cocky. Their crimson and maroon colored uniforms look like an overweight nun menstruated across their jerseys, leaving an imprint of an asexual Aslan splattered across the concavity of their respective chests. Although the school is in an almost similar cultural demographic as Manual their team is 100 percent white, the bulk stemming from the uplands off Bradley park or middle class domestic yachts dotted off of Sterling, near Newman gold course.
They are cocky. They are arrogant. Their families are in the same tax bracket as the kids who go to Manual only fewer of them have food stamps or public aid and they have fewer teenage pregnancies.
Most of all they are shit-talkers.
They won’t shut up.
Most of them will go to quality colleges.
Most of them wouldn't last a day at Manual High.
Before the race the teams tour the course together. Central is uppity. We do a slow jog of our course. We tell them to take a heard right at Sterling and Manor Parkway. We stress not to cross Sterling avenue but to head south in the direction of our school and then take a right, following the circumference of the golf course behind the ELKS club A junior with sheep-dog bangs reads one of our shirts logo, claiming MANUAL RAMS—WE LET OUR FEET DO THE TALKING jests that the reason that must be is because our team has bad breath. Central is cocky. Where our team is about 15 males and 12 females Central has 45 + of each sex running on their squad. They wear Maroon colored jerseys that look like they are giving up virility for Lent. They are mostly white kids even though their school is fairly integrated, but nearly not so much as Manual.
“They’re shit talkers’” Leatric says.
“They be talkin' so much shit they should buy stock
in Charmin toilet paper, they be talkin’ so much shit. They are shit talkers.”
Quaynor said last year with a healthy Jose and Kurt
Jones we beat them by one point on their course. Central’s Varsity consisted of
all Juniors. Sheep dog boy who looked
like he just rolled another one keeps commenting how small our team is in
comparison.
If they talked this much smack down in the hallways of Manual they would get their ass handed to them in between classes, if not in class. This is the second chance I have to break my cousin's FROSH record of 17:20. I should be focused on that but all I can think about is that we are without our Captain.
We are w/out Jose.Coach has said absolutely nothing about it.
Peacock is almost unusually reticent about it. Out of our team only Hans and myself seem to grasp the emotional paucity and intellectual void of being without Jose. Beano claims that Jose just isn’t what he used to be since he started working all the time last summer and got fat. Leatric and Quaynor both seem to know something but just says that the man is going through some heavy shit. Jose and Peacock were brothers. They drove down to Mexico last summer in Jose’s restored Mustang. Peacock seems to know something , but just won’t talk.
“Your team is smaller. Where’s your Captain?”
I tell him I don’t know. I tell him something has
been going on with Jose that Coach and the rest of the teammates don’t really
want to talk about. I tell him that we only have six runners running varsity,
the rest of are team is running FROSH-SOPH.
“Now listen, don’t worry about your captain not
being here. Just focus on the race.”
Coach points in my direction.
"The top five match evenly on paper. You, need to step up in this race. Don’t be a rabbit this time.”
There is no Jose. Our Varsity has just enough to compete. Central isn’t a power house but they are solid. Peacock is advancing. He is improving.
"The top five match evenly on paper. You, need to step up in this race. Don’t be a rabbit this time.”
There is no Jose. Our Varsity has just enough to compete. Central isn’t a power house but they are solid. Peacock is advancing. He is improving.
Our varsity has only six runners. Central's has close to fifty.
I nod. I leap up several times in a row. I spit. We
huddle at the starting line performing wind sprints. We form a human volcano
with entwined limbs, shuffling back and forth, erupting in a woof and a SOUTH
SIDE! We sprint back We shake hands with the Central team.
Before the race starts I take a felt marker, tattooing the digits 17:20 on the interior of my wrist.
The Shit-talking Sheep Dog boy with auburn bangs dripping
into his face like a stage curtain just
won’t shut up. He makes a snarky comment
that we are a diminutive team correlating the size of our team with purported inched of our cocks. Bitner, Central’s lead runner is looming around like
he is a periscope.
Sheep dog Boy just won’t shut up.
“Hey, where’s that Mexican kid you guys have? What’s
his name?” Bitner inquires
The team is not responding. I say Jose. I tell their lead harrier the truth. I tell them that no one has heard from Jose him in a couple of days.
“He’s probably out eating tacos and tamales.”
Sheep-Dog Boy says, making a little rattle with his torso.
Peacock seems unphased. Leatric makes a comment
about how they always be talking shit and they should just shut the fuck up and race.
“Jose Munoz is a fuckin’ Taco.”
I look back at Sheep Dog Boy. Coach is hundred yards
away caroling out runners and mark. The athletes on all side of me squat down
with one knee protruding out.
I am pissed at Sheep Dog. I am still sore from going
all out this morning in PE.
The snap of the starter gun is an assassin’s bullet,
an introit into battle; a declaration of war.
***
We start together, an exhaled bulb of unclad akimbo limbs kicking over the green toupee of earth, falling into an all out sprint in an effort to marshal the reins of the first mile tempo. Peacock takes the lead, followed by three Centralites. Unlike the Woodruff meet where the men were separated from the toddlers in the first two hundred meters It is the second week in September. The trees are just beginning to look bruised and singed I am remembering about what Coach told me about being the Rabbit. I am jockeying for position. Peacock is running next to Bitner. It feels like I am on water skis and he is piloting the motor boat ahead. The first small hills I feel a sharp pang and realize I have just been elbowed by sheep dog boy. He doesn’t say excuse me. He is a senior. He feels as if I should not be running in their shadow. As I sprint up the next mound He elbows me again trying to get ahead. We are close to the first flag signaling turn. I duck inside. I pouch forward, along the brick pavement of manor parkway, near where the Basketball Coach Van Syoc live. When I get to hole five I am next to Peacock and Bitner. Peacock shoots me a look with his placid gaze as if to inquire what took you so long. I take a deep breath. Bitner has taken Jose’s place from a week ago only he is from the adversarial school. At the mile I see my father standing next to Coach Ricca and the central Coach reading out splits. He snaps a picture of me. The first mile time is 5:18. Almost exactly the time I christened the meet before state last spring. I am realizing that I am running on fumes. That I went all out this morning in PE. The roll of photographs my father will have developed at Best Buy later this month will show his son, just after the mile mark, running next to Sheep Dog boy, who is still talking shit, who is telling him that the Girls Race. We are near the Elks club in Peoria and he just want stop talking shit. From my vision Peacock has surpasses Bitner for the lead, drumming his –pale-white appendages like Pistons into the manicured Golf course beneath his the chipped stalactites of his cleats, surging in the last 200 meters where Coach Ricca always told us that all-Stater Robert Clark used to surge two years earlier.
At the two mile mark I am at 11:11 so it feels like
I should make some sort of wish. All I need to do is run a 6:10 mile and the
record is mine.
We go down the mounds again, alternating between
fourth and fifth, every time I endeavor to pass him he slaps out an elbow, as
if drywall of his arm is a toll booth occluding entrance. The next time he
slaps I swat back.
We take turns battling each other for the lead. We are stride for stride. I am sore. I overdid it in PE this morning running the same distance I am running now. As I meet Sheep Dog boy step by step I pull ahead. I feel a tug on the back of my jersey. I look back as Sheep Dog Boy shoots past.
In that moment he says something. He is muffled. He
is breathing harder. Being a senior at the rival high school in DIST 150 it is obvious
he didn’t have to go to Early Bird PE and sprint for three miles straight while
being timed by an irascible coach with a bad comb-over.
Sheep-Dog boy is rambling under his breath. he says something about 17:20 inked on the interior of my arm saying that it's supposed to be 4:20 stupid. He says something else
Sheep-Dog boy is rambling under his breath. he says something about 17:20 inked on the interior of my arm saying that it's supposed to be 4:20 stupid. He says something else
“What did you say?”
He muffles something again. I swear it sounds like
why don’t you go suck on tamale like your captain Jose.
We have just past hole 5, near where I forgot to turn the last race. Three runners are ahead of us. I am currently fifth.
"You head me you fuckin' white trash cunt. Go suck on a tamale like Santa Anna. Go choke on a taco like your lame-ass leader Jose."
Without thinking I take both my hands and shove Sheep Dog boy as hard as I possibly can.
Sheep-Dog Boys falls down on his Maroon-shorted ass.
I then stop and reach out my hand to help him up. I try not to glance at the 17:20 scribed in inky font on my arm. I am losing time. I am losing seconds in eclipsing the record I feel destined to shatter.
“That’s a violation, man. You fucking pushed me. That’s a violation. I’m reporting you.”
“Quit talkin so much shit man. Fuck. Let’s just finish”
“Man fuck you for trying to pass me on the inside.”
"Fuck you."
I feel like pushing him again. We are sprinting to catch up with the two Shit-talking Centralities who passed us. As I surge again Sheep-dog boy bats out his elbow.
I return right in his chest.
"What the fuck man?"
Sheep Dog Boy remains silent, offering several apish grunts. There is 500 meters left in the race. The time is visible. At two hundred meters I see Peacock and centrals lead runner pushing through the gaping aperture of the chute in a simultaneous joust. I look up. I am out of gas down the stretch. I have no kick left. With 100 meters left I get passed down the stretch. The top seven all finishes within 45 seconds of each other. When we kick through the chute we either take a left or right. We bend over and sip water.
Sheep-Dog Fuck finishes
directly ahead of me in the chute.
Peacock I will learned finished second. Peacock shaved thirty seconds off his time from the week before. He was exactly at 17:20.
I finish at 17:49.
I should not have gone
all out in PE today but it is the only way I know how to run. I should not have pummeled Sheep Dog Boy and then stopped and helped him up. Briefly I think I am going to be disqualified from the race for the scuffle.
My time is under 18 on Madison Golf Course for the first time all season. I am taking deep breath bent over like a hinge looking down in my spikes. I feel a patter on the back of my neck. At first I think it is Jose then I look at it is Sheep Dog.He slaps me several times on the back and before I know it he is shaking my hand up and down., telling me good race. Stating that I really have a helluva kick for a freshman.
I say thank you. Central’s team trot past followed by their clipboard toting Coach. There is a sternness glues into the front of his lips. SheepDog boy points at his Coach. At first I think he is going to report that I pushed him in the middle of the race.
“Coach I tripped out there and this kid helped me up. He’s a really cool guy.”
Overall Coach Ricca seems pleased. He still has not said anything
about our Captain, Jose. I go over and give Peacock a handshake. I am
hurting. I should have been more focused. and not gone all the way out in PE today. I need to apologize to Coach for taking off so fast today in PE.
Central's bushy-eyed coach nods several times. I feel questioned validate my behavior tattling to their coach that Sheep Dog boy was talking smack, that he was intentionally elbowing me the entire race before I realized that , in a conniving way, he was covering up for both of us.
As I turn to thank Sheep-Dog Boy I realize he has already leapt away, forming a mini-moshpit with his Central teammates proclaiming that they have won.
“Good work Von Behren . You were the first Frosh-Soph
who finished.”
"I’m sorry Coach. I had those tests in PE this
morning."
Coach tells me that he heard. He is smiling.
“I was going to wait until later to tell you this
but after you ran before Home run Coach Simmons came to my classroom and said,
‘You’re not gonna believe this kid who ran in PE this morning!!' I had to laugh to myself and joke that we’ve already
got him!!!"
We lost the meet. Our captain is AWOL. Most of the team improved although my time
was still off.
For the second time in exactly a week I have failed
to match my cousin’s record.
I still have two races left on this course this
season. It has been one week since my career began.
I am lapsing slow, running with Hans back to school,
to the locker room, where I will change without showering, glancing at my cousin's record as I exit the door , looking down at the 17:20 scrawled on my arm which now looks like Hebrew Tetragrammaton.
The Word for God.
Two more shots. I have two more shots to quash the time.
I go home and make some instant coffee in powdery spoons and sit at my desk and spend the whole night studying for my Math test tomorrow, knowing that I will not be doing much in PE since I ran today, trying not to think what my time would have been had I not exploded around the court in PE. When My mom enters my room and asks if I’m fine I tell her I’m just studying. She looks at the math and says that it looks like something she had in college.
The Word for God.
I go home and make some instant coffee in powdery spoons and sit at my desk and spend the whole night studying for my Math test tomorrow, knowing that I will not be doing much in PE since I ran today, trying not to think what my time would have been had I not exploded around the court in PE. When My mom enters my room and asks if I’m fine I tell her I’m just studying. She looks at the math and says that it looks like something she had in college.
Later that night I will not be able to sleep when shadows from the opposing window beckon me into consciousness. She is dancing. She has just strutted out of the
bathroom. She is buttoning her jeans. She is dancing. She is
rattling her torso with her legs planted and splayed apart. Her arms are forming orchestrations, elbows jutted disparate
directions. She is wearing jeans that
are the color of a thatch of untethered sky on a cloudless sunrise.
She is rattling her torso as if she wants something to enter her body just below her navel.
She is rattling her torso as if she wants something to enter her body just below her navel.
They look to be the same age of Mary McQuellen.
Their silhouettes look like ships, trussed to the
mast, wondering if they could take me somewhere I have never been before.
...events chronicled above took place Sept. 8th, 1992...
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