37th Parade Young Columbus city Finalist's Competition, January 1993

The weather is the same hard gray overcast nickel-clouded melancholy as it has been on the last two previous Young Columbus attempts. Tom has parked directly in front of Manual. He asks me if I need to stop at home and get anything real quick. I slap the side of my bag and inform him that I have everything right here. As I enter his vehicle the seat belts automatically snap you into place.

 

            Time to quash all anxiety and to be convivial.

            “Thanks again for the opportunity Tom. I really appreciate it.” Tom smiles. He says that there was really no one else he had in mind.

 

“You really are the best paperboy I have in my district. You really do an amazing job.”

 

I tell him it’s a pleasure. Tom does a you-turn and takes a sharp right on Lincoln. We pass the brown house that looks more like an ice fishing shack where my Granpa Lloyd grew up. We pass the Dome Tap with the historic GIPPS beer mosaic welcome matt.  We come to a complete stop at  Western and Lincoln, the intersection I passed for a decade almost every day heading down the slope of the hill past Jumer's Castle Lodge into the direction of Christ Lutheran gradeschool and church.

Tom continues to drive, down past the Lincoln branch library. Past Butternut Bakery, the original site of Manual high school.

“Did you read about the kid who won it yesterday from Tremont?” I ask. Tom nods. He tells me apparently he had an amazing speech and the kid is supposed to be really top of the line.

I slap the side of my pocket where I have stashed my notecards and tell him that I have the winning speech right here, as if I wishing good portents on a recently purchased lottery ticket.

We drive past the fire station. Past the original Ernies. Past Pasquels. I ask Tom why he felt they moved the dinner and competition from Cater Inn to the Pere Marquette downtown.

“Cater was probably booked. The Pere Marquette is a little more classier as well.”

I tell him I agree. In the backseat of Tom’s car are bags of rubber bands and orange plastic slips to keep the morning paper dry when it is raining.  We swerve through the industrial part of downtown, past the hubcap house, past the area known as the Carousel for its prostitution. The dual metal exclamatory marks demarcating the twin towers is now in view.

The weather outside is bleak. Although his defrost and heat is on little patches of exhaled breath seem to linger in front of our lips in little cartoon bubbles accompanying our every sentence. We take a right on Main and park behind the hotel in the dual leveled parking lot. Tom tells me not to forget where he parks because he has a tendency to forget sometime.

As we walk inside the overhead silver bulbs begin to tithe a light snow. Tom says its lucky because they originally were calling for hail.  We walk under the back entrance and into the Pere Marquette, taking the escalator to the second floor.

As with the previous year Tom and I are the first to arrive. As with the previous two years Kelli Rude is placing nametags on the front table. Kelli outstretches her hand and gropes mine, welcoming me, telling me that she remembers my speech from last year. She is writing out the names of the contestants on nametags that we are to place on our lapels so the judges and our respected rivals are capable of identifying us in blinks.

“I’m arraying the nametags out on the table but you can just have hers since you are here.”

I affix the nametag to my lapel underneath the TRY GOD pin that my mom placed out for me to wear. The room looks like a giant chandelier and is adorned with mirrors on all sides. The entire facility of CATER INN could easily fit inside the ballroom of the Pere Marquette. Due to its excessive girth the six tables where the nine finalists and their DM’s along with the judges will be seated  is located at the far end of the room granting  the bulk of the ballroom an almost galactic loneliness. As with the previous two years there is one long white sheeted table that looks like it could pass as a gurney for Goliath situated on the far east side of the room. Ten feet away the spine of a singular microphone somehow appears isolated. Mirrors seemed to be stapled on the walls every which way direction but. It is impossible to swivel ones head and not fleetingly garner a glimpse of yourself from five different angles. Just as I am about ready to tell Kelli that if feels like I feel like I am giving in speech in a prism I hear my first name followed by my last name.  Someone is proclaiming my name as if they are announcing a punter at a homecoming rally.

 

“David Von Behren!!”

 

I turn around. It is Josh Noel.

 

"Dude man I didn’t know you were doing this?”

 

Josh Noel who went to Christ Lutheran until his seventh grade year. Josh Noel who had an exact twin brother named Jeremiah who was like one of my best friends in fourth grade who looks exactly like Josh only Jeremiah wore tectonically thick glasses and was held back a year so he was in my class.

Josh Noel who had an older sister named Kris who I used to play bloody knuckles with while waiting for the school doors to be unlocked in the cold breath of early March, our fingers crooked and deeply pressed forming a joined carnation of flesh, trying to inflict voluntary pain on the other. Kris who onetime tried to haze me by pushing me into the Girls' bathroom at church. Kris who was diagnosed with leukemia a year later and then lost all of her hair and had to wear a wig which was a noticeable wig that the kids used to gawk at during lunch. Kris who had to go to Doctors out of state and was informed it was terminal.

Kris who died a year later when she would have been a freshman in high school.

Josh says my last name again. There is something in the manner in which he slaps me on the back that makes it seem that we are old drinking buddies.

“I remember you were in the contest a couple of years ago.”

I answer in the affirmative. I refrain from telling him that this is my third straight year. Mentally I slap my hand across my chest in a pledge-of-allegiance snap verifying that my speech is still in my coat pocket.

I tell Josh that I didn’t realize he was in the contest this year.

I ask him who is DM is. He says it is Mick, Mick from Bartonville with the rotisserie tan skin and the who represented Marie last year. Mick who I sat with at the table where it was just myself and Digreggio and none of the judges. Mick who publically proclaimed that Marie was last year's winner before the salad course was even served.

"Mick couldn’t be here. He’s home with the flu. He called me up and asked if I was okay to drive myself and I said I was since I just got my drivers license."

Josh Noel notes how he has been to Disney world several times courtesy of the Journal Star, winning the raffle contest the Star hosts for gaining new subscribers.

“I tried winning that last year. " I tell him, recounting the tedious afternoon soliciting subscriptions in the neighborhood with the shot that my name might be pulled and I could take a bus with fellow carriers down to Florida.

 

The last time I saw Josh was at a cross-country meet. In which I dwarfed both him and his twin brother. Josh then inquires how Renae is doing and asks me if I am still going out with her.

 

I tell him not really while pressing my glasses into the center of my forehead.

“I thought there was some talk of you going to Limestone?”

I inform him there was only my dad wouldn’t let me use my grandmother’s address. I tell him that Patrick McReynolds is slated to go to Limestone in the next week. Josh asks me if I’m afraid of all those gangs and everything down there, meaning Manual. He says I should ask my father’s permission again since all my relatives are in Limestone district and that I’d really be an asset on the cross-country team.

I say the word well. I say the word maybe. The room inside the Pere Marquette is five times as elegant as the room in the Cater Inn but somehow everyone is relaxed and laid back. I hear one of the adults say that there is only nine city finalists this year, down from usually around fifteen.

 

My chance is one of nine.

 

A lad with blond hair slightly ruffled so that he kind of resembles a Duke in waiting walks through the thirteen feet rococo doors. I am the first to greet him. I tell him hello. He says hi. His name is Gordon. A well groom lanky boy with a crooked tie comes in and introduces himself as Dave. I tell him my name is Dave. I ask him where he goes to school. He says Richwoods. His district manger is the same manager who had Karen Christmas last year. He is neatly groomed and, even with the tie slightly askance looks like he could be going en route to a Young Republican convention.

 

We shake hands His name is Dave Burnett.

Josh  Noel seems to be the most gregarious. Kelli informs us that for the first time that she can remember all the Young Columbus finalists are young men, all they have had some superior newspaper girls in the past including last year’s winner.

 

 

A guy with curly short hair who looks like he just stepped out of an Archie strip cartoon steps up an announces himself as James Feger. The majority of the contestants seem to be sophomores with Gordon, being a junior stating that he is thinking about studying pre-med when he graduates in two years.

 

Kelli makes the comments that why don’t you boys go and socialize with the judges who are milling around near the front table.

 

 There is the requisite banter. I ask the guys if they have been working on their speeches. I ask the guys if they are excited. 

“I can’t imagine going to Paris. I mean, London is cool, but I think there’s just something to going to a foreign country with lots of cool art and classy chicks where nobody speaks English.”

 

Ferger lets out a verbal quip about how he was really hoping that there would be some hot girls here who were like under say forty years of age, a comment that makes Kelli Rude just soft of turn her head and face the opposite direction. Nathan is the only other person who has been here before. So far there are no girls. A tall boy with ginger ruffled hair who seems to speak in haikus walks up and begins to mingle. He states that his name is H. Jonathon Sterling. When Josh Noel asks him what the H stands for he says that it is his first name. The letter H. One of the judges is talking to Gordon and Dave Burnett about  an event called Boys State comparing it with Snowball. I make a mental calculation of my competitors, trying not to think about competing, trying not to think that I can say with confidence that I am at least in the top three if I deliver the speech I know I am capable of giving. There is crystal baptismal-shaped bowl filled with foamy punch available for the finalists. Several of the judges are drinking coffee.  

 

 

 

 The shoulder of the judges are beginning to slink and pepper throughout the room. There is one man who looks like he played center in college hoops who had to bend down like a crane when he reaches out and shakes the paws of fellow YC finalists. There is a lady with a sandy perm and glasses. Unlike last year there is no hip local DJ. Several judges shake hands with the contestants.

There is a purported member of the school board and a member of the Caterpillar Board of Trustees with a rubicund nose who looks like he popped in for a three-martini lunch. Somehow he mistakes Gordon for attending a different school and inquires if he is going to Snowball this year since he did  such a formidable, yes simply formidable job with it last year.

 

It is almost noon. Seven of the nine contestants have arrived.

I sidle next to Gordon and Dave Burnett, the male judge who has an affinity for Snowball smells like he had three dirty martinis for breakfast. He keeps bobbing his head complimenting that all of us seem like fine young men. The man has whiskey-gourd nose and is talking about his high school shenanigans. Several times he smiles and elbows the other Dave in the ribcage. Intuiting from the conversation it sounds like he is pointing at each candidate inquiring why they would like to go overseas. Dave says that he plans on going into the Peace Corps after college. Gordon is playing the humanitarian card commenting that he wants to study medicine and, perhaps someday, go to third world country and provide vaccinations for preventable diseases.

The judge sways his chin and smiles, says the word yes very quickly two times in a row. For some reason he looks like he should be wearing a monocle.

“And you young man, what makes you want to go to England. What makes you want to witness firsthand the glory of the United Kingdom?”

There is something Churchillian in the way he says the word glory. 

I want to tell the judge that I am obsessed with culture. I want to tell him everything that has happened in the dainty juvenilia discourse of my life in the past twelve months since last I participated in this contest has somehow christened. I want to tell him of the near dusk smell of an empty stage prior to drop of the house lights on opening night or the subtle splash of coppery light ricocheting across the linoleum of an empty classroom in early summer.  I want to tell him about the pulsing defibrillation of the chest followed by the nasal shrill of the phone with the anticipation that your ears might only be greeted by the echo of her voice. I want to tell his what the sight of a wet leaf in autumn mingled with the scent of her body, her lips on your neck, the timelessness of youth found in the dissipating surf of a sunset, the snickering clack of a bonfire, the glittery symphony of overhead stars in her hair.

I want to tell him how, in the last year,  about the countless hours I spent running, my legs roving beneath my waist, following the elliptical dip of a track or  brimming contours of a golf course, the clutched propelling gavels of fists fixed in a steady pounce, my eyed fixated on the blur of moving earth in front of me, how through all the craziness the destination was somehow to arrive back at this port again, attired in a bad suit, shaking hands, interfacing with local dignitaries, trying to sell my attributes like a used Volvo with shitty gas mileage.  

I want to tell the him all this.

I am placed on the spot.

Without fishing from my speech I open my mouth and allow words to fly.

The three sheet to the wind judge is smiling.

                                                                         ***

It is still cocktail hour without the cocktails. Everyone is massaging themselves  engaged  in the niceties of  socialization.  A common ice breaker amongst candidates concern location of school and size of route. There is one female judge who is ravishing. She has pasty white skin, She is gorgeous. She is middle aged sexy. She is draped in black evening gown the color of solstice ferrying a Chanel purse she delicately sets on the table. She looks like the type of culture-teething femme fatale who one might find rubbing six-figure elbows with glitterati and noveau riche at museum exhibits. She looks like the sort of woman who would put on an old recording of Maria Callas singing Puccini when she makes love.
 
I set my punch chalice down and walk in her direction.  After two steps there is fist-thump on the back of my shoulder.

“Do you remember me from last year?”

It is Nathan DeBord from the year before who also goes to the same high school as Karen Christmas.

 
Yes, I tell him. I shake his hand as if I am a politician.
 
"I wonder if there will be anyone else here from last year?"
 
I tell him I don't know. He says that it looks like we are veterans. I can't keep my eyes off the ravishing lady in the black dress who is now shaking hands with Josh Noel and introducing herself to James Feger, Josh is saying something to make her smile. 
 
I ask Nathan if her read about the winner from Tremont in the paper this morning. I ask him if he ever sees Karen Christmas at the high school he attends.

 
 
“When she won last year they made a huge deal about it. She was in the school paper. I guess she got to see the Louvre and Eiffel tower and everything." 
The final two contestants arrive. Due to the incongruity of height the last two contestants  walk in looking like C3-P0 and R2-D2. The slender lanky boy is wearing a Lacrosse hat and has very thick glasses.  He looks like he was conceived in a warehouse where they manufacture pocket calculators. The other kid is small.  He is the youngest by far.

 

I walk up to both of them and jut out my hand.

 

“I’m Dave.”

 

“I’m Daniel Walters.” The boy with the glasses replies, offering an apish grin. The other  boy is shy. He is small. I reach out my hand.  I tell him hello.

 

“I’m Ronnie,” He says, looking down.

 

We talk. Daniel goes to Woodruff where he mentions he is in some sort of advanced placement program where e can transfer to a Math and Science academy in a year. Ronnie is a seventh grader at St. Philomena.”

 

“I know St. Phil.  I went to Christ Lutheran, We used to play you guys in basketball all the time.”

 

He looks like he wants to smile only he can’t.

 

“So you guys are friends? You know each other?”

 

“We just met in the lobby. We got lost.”

 

I point at Kelli who is still passing out nametags.

 

“That’s the lady you want to see about checking in. She has your nametags and everything.”

 

Daniel pinches his thumb and his pointer finger and says okay. Ronnie looks down aloof. James Feger seems to be on his fourth cup of punch.

 

 

“That was really kind what you did with those two boys, welcoming them and showing them where to go.” She says, I assume she is talking about R2 and C3-Po.

I tell her it was nothing. I introduce myself.

"I’m Judy Sargent-Houdyshell." She says. She seems overtly proud that her last name has a hyphen.

I look down at her hand. She is wearing jewelry but not anything that looks remotely like a wedding ring. I remember the first Young Columbus I entered two years ago the lone female judge was the first ever Young Columbus winner who was a female.

I also overheard what you told Mr. Carver about wanting to go overseas to experience the world  You certainly sound ardent about wanting to see the world and experience the globe.

I feel like telling  her that I’ve never flown. I feel like telling the sexy judge that the furthest I have ever traveled is Washington DC on a family vacation two years ago.

The sexy-middle aged lady is smiling at me. It is like she is flirting. She is telling me that she has some sort of managerial position at Caterpillar but that she’s the president of the Junior League.

She says that it really takes up most of her time but that it’s a joy

I have no clue what the Junior League does. It sounds like a little league for burgeoning super heroes, wonder woman learning to cut looser in a  training bra. I refrain from telling the judges that this is my third time entering this competition.



A common thread seems to be for the judges to inquire plans of the contestants after high school The sexy middle-aged judge has already asked me twice. I am nervous. If feels like she is flirting with me. I am nervous. If feels like she is flirting with me. Both my parents’ are teachers. I can’t imagine doing anything that doesn’t involved teaching.

“I don’t know. I’d really like to go overseas and live for a couple of years and then perhaps teach high school history or English.”

The classy middle-age vixen shoots me a look like that is very noble but why would you

“However I have been thinking,  you never know, maybe I’ll end up working for the Junior League.”

Judy looks at me as if I just walked into the early child learning center, whipped out my unit and began masturbating over an etch-a-sketch.

“The Junior league is an all-female organization. We’re just for women.”

“Oh,” I say.

I am toady. I have no clue what I am talking about. I knew that the Junior league was an altruistic organization but I had no clue that it was anti-penis. I feel like a eunuch. I wonder if my naiveté of civic organizations somehow cost me London. I picture the tip of Big Ben being horizontally tilted and castrated inside a very Marie Antoinette assenting Guillotine that somehow, resembles the pearly tips of the classy Junior Leaguers close up smile.

 

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you." I say, outstretching my punch-less hand.

She informs me that the pleasure is all mine.
 

 

 

 

                                                                ***

I am seated at the table with the classy lady from the junior league I embarrassed myself earlier. It is almost as if she doesn’t seem to mind.  Unlike the previous years my District manager is seated at my table along with contestant Daniel Walters. Two years ago their were 15. Last year there were 12 contestants. This year there is only 9.

I know the drill.

Judy Sargent-Houdshell keeps looking at me. She smiles even though I keep getting Junior League confused with the Justice League. 

 

For the second year in a row Tom Otten is seated at my table even though most of the District managers are not situated with their paper boys. I refrain from the urge of ordering a cup of coffee for fear I will shake while delivering my speech. With the exception of Classy Judy and yes-yes three sheet Martini  I have not had the opportunity to socialize with any other judge .Lunch is some sort of Chicken Parmesan. I am familiar with which cutlery to use.  I am being polite.  I am circling the table asking questions. The sexy woman from the Junior League is seated next to me.  Her hair is the same auburn color as the toga clad girl in the Blasphemous Rumors vision where I woke up on my bedroom floor panting. Three tables over I can see the gourd-chinned Martini gentlemen seated next to Josh Noel and Nathan DeBord asking them the same question about why they wish to travel overseas and responding back in the similar cadence by saying yes, yes good, quite right, yes.

 

 

In the back of the room I can't keep my eye off the table that is unused.  There is banter and laughter. I have had no more snafus. When Judy asks Daniel Walters what he most wants to see in England he begins talking about arsenal then states that hopefully when he wins the contest he  can meet fellow anachronistic aficionados and maybe have a real Dungeon & Dragons match in a castle.

 “That would be cool.” Walters comments to himself, making a reference to a 7^th level dwarf with magical potion. 

Dessert is being served. Even from where I am seated I can hear Josh Noel talk about winning the raffle to Disney world next year with the permy sandy haired judge.  Before his mousse is placed in front of his chin. Daniel abruptly stands up, goes to the empty table and picks up two water glasses.As if calculated he takes a different incremental sip out of each water cup. He then licks the tips of his fingers and begins to massage the top of the cups, creating sounds engendering high pitched crystalline chimes.  The room is completely silent. Midway through he licks the tips of his fingers again passing stating that he is not very good at this.  When he stops the room is ambushed in applause.

From three tables over I can hear the Martini-chinned judge state that it is just splendid, just splendid.

 

Daniel stands up and takes a bow. He turns towards Judy and states that he is self-taught.

“Braham’s violin concerto, D major? ” Judy inquires.

“Polly Wolly Doodle.” He says, with an apish smile tattooed on his face.

 

For the third year in a row Kelli steps up to the microphone and states that our program is about to begin.

 

                                                                          ***

As she has the previous two years Kelli Rude welcomes everyone to the 1993 Young Columbus luncheon. Kelli goes through the rote standards of saying each Young Columbus names and asking each of us to stand up when our names are read. One by one post-adolescent shoulders rise followed by the serial digits of our district as well as the names of our district manager. Kelli then asks for a hand for all the recipients.   

 

The speeches then proceed.

 

According to alphabetical genetics David Burnett goes first. He is lanky in a George Bailey it’s a wonderful life sort of way. He has smile that seems hand dipped in a rivulet of kindness. He smiles and shuffles his notecards like grade school flashcards. His smile seems to dissipate and then he smiles again offering the audience a subtle wine-cooler blush. He taps the microphone as if it might snap him. He looks at the panel of judges seated at the table.  His speech is solid. He talks about saving up for college with the route and about wanting to go overseas. He has the misfortune of going first and not knowing what the rest of the field avails. Nathan Debord is second. It is his second time through. He seems to have the bulk of his speech memorized and is looking up into the corner of his skull. Mid-way through he pauses stutters reaches into his pocket and scrutinizes a notecard before continuing on with his presentation. James Feger struts up to the microphone wearing a smile and begins his speech holding his notecards in front of him like he is giving a drunken toast at a wedding reception.  He states that the coolest thing about seeing England would be all the castles, and, yes, the British babes, which garners a few chuckles. H. Jonathon Sterling stands in front of the microphone in almost totemic posture resembling a Native American wood carving in front of a tobacco shop. He stakes claim to everything the route has taught him but he fails to mention England or why he wishes to go there. Same with Josh Noel’s speech, who seems to stress that the reason he is the best candidate for the sojourn is because he has won the trip to Disney world twice and this would be the glazed frost icing on the wedding cake so to speak. Gordon seems to topple over verbal hurdles his speech, almost as if he composed it last night. He too doesn’t have a notecard but looks around almost as if he is nervous and ad libbing, looking at the judge whom he interfaced about Snowball with and stating that the route has taught him to save up for many important activities such as Snowball.

 

So far David Burnett is my nearest competitor, Unlike most years there are three after my name. I can’t help but feel for Nathan DeBoard since his speech was solid but that he always has the unfair advantage of going near the top.

 

 

I am the seventh to go.

Kelli walks up to the microphone. Before I know it she is saying my name.

 

 

                                                                                  ***

 

 

 

 

 

I have owned this speech from the outset. I have mentally combed over it close to three hundred times. I am applying oratorical cosmetics.  I am making eye contact. I am inviting the judges and fellow YC candidates to participate in my speech by making them feel welcome.  I enunciate. When I make a joke about England being seven hours ahead so I don’t have to worry about getting up so early to do my route I pause and the audience laughs. Throughout the discourse of the speech I look at the judges twice. martini-chin is smiling but he has been smiling at each other boys speeches. The second time I glance at Judy Sargent- Houdyshell.

 

 I am taking them on a sabbatical through the lushest dales and intractable fortresses of England  without allowing them to leave the contours of their seat. I am humbled. I thank God. I talk about character augmenting opportunity. I am remembering when to employ arm movement.  I am explicating the audience of strangers on the verities of responsibility I have learned from rising  up at 4:30 every morning and delivering the medium of print informing neighborhood porch lights. I am gesticulating about how it has taught me integrity. I am talking about England, a country I have never seen. I am talking about the vernal hills and the lushest countryside. I am talking about the bucolic villages and how my appreciation of world Affairs would be Greatly enriched.  I send a shot out to my mom who shares the same birthday as Queen Elizabeth, talking about how the Queens birthday will transpire when I am overseas by noting that her birthday is officially celebrated by the state as Trouping the colors in June. I keep the notecard at mid-thigh thigh perimeter. I am glance at them sporadically as if shuffling a deck of playing cards blindfolded.

 

 
 
 
This year everything is perfect. This year everything is toppling into place like finely hewn Tetris blocks. I give myself point’s for making references to sapient British landmarks. A rush comes over Judy’s cheekbones when I talk about cavorting through a sea of crocus in Hyde park come spring.

 

   
 

 For some reason I think about what Coach Mann said about envisioning everyone in their underwear and then stop when I get a potential hardon looking at the lady from the Junior League. I talk about the vernal English countryside. I talk about how being granted this opportunity of a lifetime would aesthetically augment my cultural appreciation for life on this planet.  

 
Towards the end of my speech I begin to see them. They are seated at the extraneous table in the back of the room. They are at the table and I can see them with my glasses on. I can see everyone from the last year. They are out in the audience at the table’s if the Pere Marquette. All of my competitors are somehow transmogrifying, as if they are unleavened wafers and sweetened Mogen David wine, cloaked in an albino doily bridal veil, lifted up in front of the statue of Jesus  consecrated by Pastor Schudde as he christens it the transubstantiated body and blood, I can see them as I am delivering my speech. They are at the table in the back with the paucity of Guests.  I am gesticulating with both my hands from nipple-level in mv chest as if I am talking about lower and upper case alphabetical bra- sizes, as if I am parting a biblical sea, letting my people go, when I see the bodies of those from the last year, they are seated at the vacant table in the back that still has the napkins folded like little papal helmets, like Baha’i temple in front of the unused salad bowls. I see Coach Ricca smiling, nodding his chin as if keeping time, I see Mr. Reents smiling, his rubicund pumpkin visage.

 

I am doing the speech. Peacock is next to me. By his own admission he has not run since Sectionals.  I am ahead of him. I am ahead of Coach.  The lockers are blurring past me. I should not be going this hard out right away. I am thinking about Pat Joyce. I am thinking about Sue Gibson from someplace called Trenton-Wesclin listening to country music and running ahead of the pack at state meet.

Somehow Mrs. Peabody and Cool Joe Thomas are wearing studded button-up dress shirts and asking us if we want cream without coffee during dessert.

 

 

I move my hands, excitedly crunch my fists as if I am strangling an invisible Muppet.   I look at the judges. The lady from the Junior league is looking at me with a smile before looking down.  I continue with my speech.

Betsy is seated on her legs. She has turned around and is facing me. She is bobbing up and down. She is smiling. She looks like she is ready to clap. Somehow Dawn Michelle is wearing flappers hat and is smoking a cigarette and is sexy as shit. She is ashing in somebody else’s unused coffee cup. She has a perplexed look on her face. She is a state speech champion. Perhaps she is judging me vicariously in her brilliant tiara-capped brain. I see Andrea looking at me with her tilted head and smile on her face the same way she looked at me while I was performing on stage last July when I left the theatre and circled the parking lot chasing her just to say goodbye. Tina is at the table, wearing a fishnet top and no bra. Bob and Frank are also somehow at that table drinking cocktails. Drinking old fashions. They are smiling the entire duration of my speech.  They are nodding their head after every paragraph I speak.  Somehow they seem to have hit up a friendship with Mr. Reents and the three of them laugh three-falsetto octaves higher then anyone else in the room every time I make a witticism or flippant aside. 

I am talking about England.  I use alliteration. I say the phrase Princes and Pageantry, Tea- and tradition. I talk about what a privilege it would be to witness first hand architecture dating back hundreds of years. I see the burgundy hair of Madam Breton and Mme Suhr. Coach Mann is standing next to coach Ricca in the corner, next to the inexplicable Christmas tree, smiling. I wonder if Coach Mann is picturing me in my underwear. For some reason I briefly think about Nat Pflderer. I think about how cool he looked in the paper this morning.  How he is two years older. I wonder what it would be like to go overseas and come back home with a brother.

I see Stacia with her pomegranate forehead and the most beautiful smile I have ever seen. I see Andrea who always smells like a sun dipped in chlorine. There is Renae looking at me with elliptical eye-shadow looking as if she has been crying asking me why I felt the need to crucify her. Asking me why, even though I am handcuffed to the golden talisman she gave me for Christmas I felt the need somehow to let her go.  Why I felt the need to sacrifice the Friday nights where he cool parents' chauffeured us around town in their Firebird and we would make out for hours in the brisk autumnal rain.

I hear Pam. She is laughing in the same time signature of Larry Reents and Bob and Frank. She is smiling. She mouths the word Charlie. She smiles again.

The last person I see is Karen Christmas. She is blushing. Her forehead looks like ice-sculpture starting to melt. I am seeing her last year cruising down the arteries of the Seine in Paris.  The top of her wedding cake forehead seems to melt into the arch of her smile.

 

I am punctuating my locution. Betsy is bobbing up and down. She has her hands spaced out like cymbals in front of her lap I am thanking both the judges and Tom, my cool District manager for awarding me the tremendous opportunity to compete in this event.

The applause crackles after my speech. I look at the table.

 For the second year in a row my District Manager Tom is smiling.

                                                                        ***

Ronnie Vorrath is small. When he approaches the microphone Kelli comes up and adjusts it prompting laughter amongst the room. Even when the stem of the microphone is placed on its smallest level he still seems to be speaking up. There are several pauses in his speech and he grants his DM a look like he is horrified. Midway through Ronnie Vorath’s speech Daniel Walters inexplicably gets up and walks to the nearest wall mirror. He looks what one might expect the millionth monkey randomly typing out a proverbial Hamlet to look like.  He goes to Washington gifted. The judges look nonplussed why one competitor is scrutinizing himself and fixing his tie while a speech is being given.

After Ronnie's speech there is a wreath of applause. Just as Ronnie is headed back to his said place Daniel struts up to the microphone without being formerly introduced. Kelli holds her hand up like a game show hostess and says without further ado. Daniel interrupts her. There is little applause. It is obvious just by the manner in which his tie is affixed that he is president of his high school chess club. He starts out teeming with energy, asking the judges a rhetorical question about what they think about when they think about when they hear the word ENGLAND.  He seems to have three parts to his speech, which is part valedictorian and part pyramid scheme solicitor. He talks about his unblemished GPA and his community service which he has to do with non-related senior citizens and is tabulated to the point tenth of an hour. It seems like he excels in everything he has ever breathed on. He talks about initially getting the paper route so he could save money for space camp and gives a joke no one seems to glean about how ironic it was to find out that his Otolaryngologist was his customer right when he was in his office being probed with medical equipment opening up and saying ah.

 

This kid is good. His speech is perhaps too animated. He is talking about, if granted how monumental this trip to England would be to his incumbent career at NASA. He is gesticulating in an overtly caffeinated manner stating just that there is really no difference if you think about it concerning Columbus sailing off into unchartered territory and that of Jean-Luc Picard boldly and bravely going where no man has been before. The judges are have a look on their face as if they have just seen a child savant solve a Rubik cube with his hand  cuffed behind his back. Daniel is orchestrating his limbs in a frenetic fashion like a Wagnerian conductor. It is clear that he is arriving to the pinnacle of his speech which is beginning to have a primary campaign feel attached to it.  Just when he is ready to deliver some sort of cathartic astrophysics punch line he lifts up his hands and pauses.  Nothing is coming out of his mouth. He repeats the previous sentence and lifts up both arms again. Every single judge has his/her mouth agape.  His speech has been brilliant but there has been little references England and, with the exception of the Otolaryngologist to his route. Daniel holds up one finger and abruptly says excuse. He walks with an insanely straight back to the hallway where our coats are collected. He shuts the door. There is yelling. He is calling himself and idiot. He is telling himself to calm down.  The sexy female judge who I made the Junior League snafu with still has her lips open. For a moment it sounds like he is slapping himself on the side of his head. No one seems to know who Daniel Walter’s District Manager  is seated. There seems to be some speculation amongst the contestants if he even has one. Just as Kelli looks around the room motioning with her chin that maybe one of the adults should go and check on him the door re-opens. Daniel’s face is pallid. He is still walking extremely straight. He walks up to the microphone while pressing his middle finger into the center of his glasses while audibly clearing this throat.

 

 "In conclusion that is why I feel I am most competent to represent the Journal Star on the upcoming Young Columbus trip to England.”

There is a pause followed by several golf claps. Daniel walks straight to the table where I am seated.

Kelli  speaks into the microphone stating that this concludes the speech  portion of the Young Columbus contest, asking for a round of hands for both the contestants and the judges.

  The applause sounds like firing range.

The applause sounds like tears.

                                                                         ***

This is the year, I think, outside of the initial sociological snafu with the classy lady from the Junior League I have nailed every tete-a-tete with the judges. I have been friendly and gregarious and have shaken everyone’s hand. I have poetically preached about my education and how I want to study overseas after I graduate from high school. I have talked about how much the route has taught me in terms of discipline and about how much joy I have found in waking up at 4:30 in the morning and watching the raspberry flavored dawn slit into overhead eastern banner of the planet. I have discussed with prestigious dignitaries what it feels like to slice open the yellow rinds binding a bundle of papers together, like an infant basket-clad Nile bobbing baby Moses, carefully folding each inky bulletin into individual scepters later to be unfolded and to ferry the discourse of the worlds events to each diligent eye-lid subscriber.

                                                                                          

There is locker room banter between the contestants. Everyone is relaxed. Even Daniel Walters seems to have orally ingested a  Xanax  and is laughing at his performance, stating if you think that was   bad, you should have seen me at the preliminaries for MENSA last year. We are headed in the direction of the coat rack to adjourn back to the Journal Star when the photographer suggests that, unlike previous years where we take the group picture at the  Star we all bundle together in the lobby for a group picture. Kelli tells us that we need to get close together.  We line up. The photographer seems to admonish us when he tells us to be serious now fellows. He has to snap the picture again because James Ferger was making an inappropriate gesture. The DM’s are holding coats. Some of them are swiping their heads back and forth. A couple of them are chuckling in a boys-will-be-boys type of manner. Some one says that its time to go back to the Star now. Kelli lolls her eyes up into the top of her skull as if she is thanking whatever higher-deity there be that this part of the day has concluded. Josh says that there’s no reason to go back to the Star since everyone in this room knows he’s already the winner.

There is laughter and camaraderie. The judges are  seated at the table conferring.

In less than a half hour we will know who the winner will be.



                                                                              ***

“I thought your speech was the best.” Tom says, as we clamber into his car where the seatbelts automatically fasten you into your seat. There is a pause as we pull out of the Pere Marquette parking garage, swerving into Main street motoring all the way down the bluff, taking a right on Adams where will proceed until we reach the Star. As has been the case the last three years the weather is grisly overcast, haughty clouds with a velvet almost lavender feel attached to them.  As has been the case the previous two years flecks of snow also sprinkle and drift as we drive, occasionally Tom twists on the windshield wipers to bat the sheets of snow and drizzled ice. The heater whirs as Tom’s vehicle continues to thrush into our destination. It feels as if we are driving through a globe of snow. I make small talk, realizing that it is out of my hands. That, if the lapel on the pin of my jacket would indicate, I am to trust the lord. I realize that mom has been fasting and praying, praying this morning before she dropped me off to school that I would remain magnanimous in my character and courteous in my speech.
 
We continue to drive, the pasture of thick clouds above us.

 

            “Of course,” Tom adds, “I thought your speech was the best one last year as well.”

 

            There is nothing I can say. It is no longer in my hands.  The last two years we car pooled from Cater Inn and drove to the Starr

 

“What do you think about Clinton being inaugurated yesterday?” I am fifteen years old. There have been a republican in the White House ever since I was all of three years of age.

“I actually voted for Perot.” Tom notes. I tell him that I like Perot. That I think he would have won had he not dropped out and then dropped back in. That he almost garnered twenty percent of the popular vote and had he not Bush surely would have won the election in something of a landslide.

 

We are headed down Adams. The day still has a gray feeling attached to it. If I look out the side I can see my reflection. Somehow it feels like it is two years ago and I am in Adam Damico’s driveway making small talk with Al going over my notes for the first speech two years ago.

 

I am still thinking about Bill Clinton.

 

“Regardless if I win this thing or not, it looks like things are changing here in the good ol’ you-ess-of-aye.”

 

Tom looks back at me and smiles sans saying anything. We have almost arrived.

 

 

                                                                        ***

                                                           

We meet in the lobby of the Journal Star, all nine of us. There is laughter. It seems hard to believe that one of us will be allocated a trip of the lifetime and the others of us will never see each other again. Several ties have already been loosened like we have just finished taking final exams at Eton. There are several elbow props. One of the DM’s makes a comment that this is one of the most relaxed groups of finalists he has ever seen. We are all shaking hands. Gordon comes up and tells me that he kind of thought my speech was the best. Our post-speech preparatory tour convenes. We look like we have just gotten out of a three hour Lenten church service. Kelli states that normally we split the boys up in two groups but you guys seem to be hitting off okay. David Burnett makes a joke about maybe his speech would have went better if he would have asked everyone in room attendance to all rise for the pledge of allegiance first. James makes a comment about how he thinks it would have been funny if he dressed up like Christopher Columbus, a historic Interpreter with a three pointed hats and tights and began to  give a speech as if he were supplicating in front of the King of Portugal to cross the ocean and look for an adventure-fraught land in the quote “new world.”  Daniel Walter begins to crack up and says that he had no qualms dressing up like Queen Isabella if someone wants to dress up like his King. Gordon looks at him funny. I continue to be reserved. One of the DM’s shoots us a ‘you-boys-are-acting-up-and-getting-too-loud’ sort of look and to remember that we are the crème de la cream as far as paperboys with service is allowed.

 Kelli seems flustered that none  of the boys are much into the tour.

 We cut through the newsroom, Kelli explaining to us that this the area where the writers’ crunch out deadlines. Dan makes a yawning sound in front of David Burnett. Little Ronnie Vorath also seems to be getting in on the fun. When we enter the press area I try to ask a question I already know the answer to just to seem that I am seriously into the tour and not appear ungrateful to participate in the event. Josh Noel makes a comment about this customary tour being tedious, stating that they should just announce that his speech was the best and that he won the contest so that we can all get on with our lives. 

 

            For the third year in a row they sit us down and inform us that, although their can only be one finalist, in a way we are all Young Columbuses plural on the verge of discovering the beautiful continent before us that is our own individual life. The plaques are already neatly stacked faced up forming an Old Testament sacrificial lamb altar. Both Nathan DeBord and myself know the routine. The plaques already have our names adorned on them. There is larger plaque that is separate and overturned suffocating the consonants and vowels of the eventual winner’s appellation.

I sit at the far end, near the Bunn coffee machine, wondering if it would be impolite to help myself to a cup courtesy of the Star. Josh Noel seems to be taking pride gratuitously spinning his newsroom swivel chair around like a siren.

It’s all guys with short hair and ties and for some reason we are a fraternity, cracking each other on the back with witticisms.  Like previous years we are all sitting around the board room table. There are smiles flecked with gruff virile snorts. Feger spins the chair around several times in a row in police siren like fashion. Bradley again talks about all of the benefits of boys state. Daniel, the precocious harlequin is even laughing at fellow jests. There seems to be no animosity or envy among the candidates this year whatsoever. When Kellie Rude announces to the cadre her plenary remarks on how there can only be one young Columbus winner, Josh Noel thumbs his palm into his chest very pledge of allegiance style once again and says that its gonna be him. The uneasiness of years past—the nerve rattling anxiety has all but dissipated. Lyle announces the names in alphabetical order before passing out plaques like good china at Thanksgiving. There seem to be no bias. After every name is called applause erupts in raucous hoots. One by one we are rising, one my one we are walking to the front of the conference room with out stretching our hand. James Feger does an Arsenio Hall fist pump. Josh Noel is emulating Wayne’s World genuflecting up and down like a teeter-totter telling everyone one that we’re not worthy. As with the speeches Ronnie Vorrath is the last to accept his plaque.  Lyle Anderson is looking out the window at the banks of snow heaped in the parking lot. A pew silence has permeated the room.  Lyle looks back at all of us. He lifts up the winner’s plaque, the name visible only to himself.

 

We are waiting. This is the third year in a row.

We are waiting.
 

Lyle clears the nicotine saturated mucous in his throat. The silence in the room is meditative and enveloping.  He looks at the plaque again. He swallows as if verifying he has an Adams apple before stating the proclamation, before saying the word ‘and,’ which always sounds like the name Anne, before stating Anne the winner of the 1993 37^th anne-you-elle Young Columbus followed by the particle is followed by a long gravid pause what sounds warble, cheap cable static, noise followed by the coastline of syllables, breath skimming into the microphone biting out the sound of his name.

 

They announce the winner by reciting the colloquial anne the winner is.

 

There is a pause.

 

The room smells like coffee brewed six hours earlier that day.