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.
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.
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.
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.
My season is over.
Afterwards Coach tells me that he is proud of me.
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.
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.
"Well Dave," Hans and I both look down. We are not crying. We are saying goodbye to all this.
We are saying goodbye.
events took place 10-24-14
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