The second week of March the sun begins to prop its bald head casting shadows that look like sails on the cement sidewalk leading up to the high school propelling clods of dirty snow to melt and dribble into rivulets of perspiration clogging up the sewer drains of south and Westside Peoria. I have already had three indoor track meets so far this season. My mile time has been avg between five-thirty and five-fifteen. I am running varsity. Spring seems top cut into the earth, above, like a windshield, the herd of athletes continue to winnow, continue to rove as one sagebrush herd, our limbs breaking out from the institution in the Southside, running up Ligonier Hill, stretching into Madison park golf course as one unit. The distant runners essay being ascribed by Coach Ricca different routes around West Peoria, myself breaking ahead running ahead of the herd, trying to push ourselves somehow further, trying to disintegrate the neon stopwatch flashes that, stuttering blink that co-signs our time at the end of the four elliptical loop.
I hear from Tabitha’s sister that she found someone else to go to vice-versa with her only it was a junior. This Friday I am leaving for Chicago for a Lutheran Youth Congress. I have never been to one. Last summer there was a National Youth Gathering in New Orleans. There was a possibility that I might have been able to attend. We have Bake sales every Sunday between church services, while adults heave urns of coffee inside the kitchen next to the Community room awaiting bible classes.
I am excited to go.
The official outdoor track season has yet to start I am the fastest miler on the squad.
There is a state meet and though my mile doesn’t qualify, coach says I am welcome to come and be a fifth man on the 4 x 800 varsity team telling me that my split time is right up there with the best of them and if something happens they can run me in either the prelim or the final.
I ask coach if it would be possible if I could have that weekend off. I explain to him that my church youth group is having a youth conference in Chicago and since I am president of the youth group I ask him if it would be possible if I could go.
I was conflicted about the manner. I spent the previous night abstaining from masturbating, and voyeuristically espying the college girls next door and beseeching forgiveness, asking God that Coach will be cool with my decision.
Coach Winkler, the head Coach asks if he could see me in his office. I apologize. I tell him I am sorry. I tell him that I agreed to go to this conference back in January before I realized that there was a track meet on that date.
“So first you tell us that you are going to miss a week of meets when you go to England and now you are going to miss going to the state meet just so you can worship Jesus.”
I tell him basically yes. He tells me that he can respect that.
“Just don’t have anything planned for the weekends once you get back. We are going to need you.”
I tell him yes sir. He says don’t call me sir. He asks me how my mile time is. He asks if I have broken the permeable five-minute membrane yet.
“No, but I am close.”
“Get closer. Sub-five minutes put you into an elite group. Don’t run like a freshman. Get there.”
I push myself harder that day. I break from the pack. Coach is yelping out splits. My half-mile split is 2:21. I continue to blast off. My northern limbs continue to gyrate. Curtains of sweat stain my eyes. I wonder if I squint if I can somehow make out England around the elliptical swerve of the track.
My finishing time is five-oh-five. It is still indoors. Coach says that I should have no trouble acclimating to out doors and that next week we will begin running some of the old cross-country courses outside.
"This is your year, Von Behren This is your year."
***
***"This is your year, Von Behren This is your year."
***
Due to simply staggering low ACT verbal scores Manual
has implanted the word of the day and USSR (an acronym for uninterrupted silent
sustained reading), a period where, in cool Joe Thomas’ class, we are to spend
20 minutes simply reading. In French class Mme Suhr has Le Mot Du Jour where
she write a French word that has been massaged into the English language,
reminiscent of Patrick month’s earlier getting in trouble upon telling Madame
that he thought tete-a-tete had more to do with le grande Tetons below the chin
than above. The first day of the rather communist sounding USSR Cool Joe Thomas
feels compelled to spend the entire period reserved for intellectual musing
discussing the formative importance Goodbye Mr. Chips had on his life. The next
day he goes around the classroom to see what we all are reading these days. I
am reading Last of the Breed by Louis L’amour, my father’s favorite author. When
he turned forty my aunt Chris gave him 40 Louis L’amour novels//
What you reading Von Behren? Some book about British
fags.
The class hiccups in giggles. Directly in front of me
Angelina Lighthouse is wearing her boyfriend’s football varsity jacket.
I dip my head into my book. I am commiserating with
the protagonist Joe Mack, a shot down air force pilot or Sioux origin escaping
Russia by crossing the Bearing Strait.
I feel like I cannot leave this place soon enough.
I the hallway Aron Browman looks at me. He aks me how
my book on England Fags is coming along.
It is the girl who always sits by herself in the lunchroom.
The girl with short blonde hair semi-frizzed like Dawn Michelle and pellucid
vitamin-deficient civil war china doll cheekbones. She has a King James Bible
next to her. The girl who no one will talk to. Who gets bothered by boys in
study hall. Who doesn’t quite fit in. The girl who just transferred here from
the school in the east valley.
She is always by herself in the lunchroom. She sits
the bible down next to her food. She forms an embryo with her fists and bows
her head and mutters rehearsed protestant mantras over her meal.
She is the girl who is by herself and she is the girl
who is lonely
Patrick has been gone for almost a month. From what I can glean from occasionally speaking with Hale Patrick is loving Limestone although Amy Culshaw has some sort of in school restraining order places against him since he was always slitting heavily perfumed missives into her locker
.
I can’t stop looking at the girl who sits by herself with and bible next to her and prays over her food.
“What are you looking at?” Tim inquires.
I tell him nothing.
Nothing at all.
While waiting for the brown and
white station wagon to arrive at the side of the school I hear a woman’s voice
from across the street picking up her son.
“Hey David, are you all packed for
England yet?”
I look at her. She identifies
herself as being on the school board.
“I was one of the judges for the
contest. We never got a chance to formally talk because I wasn’t at your table.
You definitely deserved to win. Your speech was clearly the best.”
I look at the Judge again. The judge is Wayne Pipkins mom. It was the judge who has sandy-blonde perm.
I smile and wave. She gets into her
car and waves back informing me to have a great time and to take lots of
pictures and make lots of new friends.
When I arrive back home I ask mom
if there was anything in the mail. She tells me no.
“It’s coming though. They wouldn’t
have told you that you won a trip and then have forgotten all about you.”
While driving up Western hill I
swear I see Jose. His hair is long and woven into dreadlocks. His nose is
pierced. He has gained what looks like forty pounds. He is walking further into
the south side as if he is a migrant worker.
His eyes are still gentle. He is
walking with his head down, as if he is unsure which direction he is actually
going.
***
After track practice mom is smiling. She has been
working on her forty day spiritual adventure for church. She tells me that she
will never guess what happened today. I ask her if a package came in the mail.
She tells me no.
“I talked with Nat Pflderer’s mom today.”
I look back at her stunned.
In typical Mom fashion she went to the phone book
and located the Pflderer’s number in Tremont.
”I figured that we both have sons going to England
we should talk about the process. Like about filling out passports.
Mom states that first off he’s a Christian.
“His parents’ are missionaries. He was actually born in Brazil so he didn’t
need to apply for a passport. He’s a Christian.” Mom states again.
She states that she’s thankful that I’m traveling
with a fine young man.
Every Lent mom has been doing a Chapel of the Air
inspired 40 day spiritual adventure. She does a spiritual adventure by David
Maines. Last year most of the church participated and Pastor Schudde even
interpolated several of the daily lessons into his sermon. It is a devotional,
like the portals of prayer my father always has furled next to a copy of
Readers’ Digest in the front pocket of his shirt.
It is forty days. It starts on ash Wednesday and ends
and Easter Sunday when I will wake up and walk across the street to the bushel
of papers and instead of saying hello father will address me as “He (with a capital
male pronoun) has Risen)" and I will reply in the colloquial Lutheran
affirmative that he has risen indeed.
I’m going to Limestone tonight to watch a girls
basketball game.
I wonder if I will see Renae.
“I even asked his mom if it would be okay if you
called him to maybe meet before the trip and she said that Nat was really busy
with wrestling and everything but feel free to call him anytime.”
Mom tells me again that she is thankful that the
fellow Young Columbus I am traveling with is a Christian.
She says it is an answer to prayer.
***
That night before I leave for the Limestone-Manual game I try calling up Nat Pflederer. The phone rings several times. A man with a high-pitched voice picks up the phone.
"Hi, I was wondering if I might speak with Nat, Please?"
He says sorry. he tells me that Nat is at a wrestling meet. He asks me if I am someone else. I say no.
I hang up without saying my name.
***
"Hi, I was wondering if I might speak with Nat, Please?"
He says sorry. he tells me that Nat is at a wrestling meet. He asks me if I am someone else. I say no.
I hang up without saying my name.
***
That night I go to the Supersectional women's basketball game. It is Limestone vs Manual. The winner will advance to the state meet. Last Year Limestone finished second in the state by two points to Chicago Marshall even through one team was composed of kneecap calcium farm girls and one team was entirely black.
The gymnasium is packed.
The Manual side sits on the far end of the visitor's section. It appears the entire community of Limestone Township has turned out to cheer on their Lady Rockets
Even though I go to Manual I mill around the audience. I look for the chance at perhaps spotting Renae, I want to be accepted with this crowd.
As I am looking for Renae I look up and see him It is my District Manager. It is Tom. He has come out with his family to cheer on the team representing his community.
As I am looking for Renae I look up and see him It is my District Manager. It is Tom. He has come out with his family to cheer on the team representing his community.
I still think about the way Tom closed his eyes and pumped his fist up and down and smiled when I won.
"Tom I just can’t thank you again for nominating me. I just can’t thank you enough. "
He is smiling.
He is looking at me like I am is son. The entire Limestone community has come out on Ash Wednesday to cheer on their team even though there is what constitutes as a blizzard outside.
I thank Tom again. I picture him at the moment Lyle Anderson called my name and he humbly closed his eyes and clutched his fists.
Tom smiles at me with his sandpaper moustache and benevolent almond eyes.
He tell me simply to have the time of my life when I go overseas.
It will be almost five years until I speak with Tom again.
Manual wins the game. There is no sighting of Renae.
None at all.
None at all.
***
It is Saint Patrick’s day. The first outdoor met is still two weeks away.
“What if we are not Irish?” Andrew Brinker raises up his right hand and inquires.
Mr. Reents says then you just become Irish. Outside of laying brick and imbibing Guinness I have no clue how to become Irish.
“If you want to become Irish all you have to do is an and Oh apostrophe or a Mc in front of your last name on the test That’s all you have to do.”
I tell him it is coming soon.
***
It is a standoff. The Newspapers are calling it a siege.
I give her a hug. I still have yet to talk with Nat Pflederer. I still have yet to hear from PARADE.
Hans Logrotto has finished swim season and has
started running. With Peacock gone it is the two of us. We are tracking
laps in the school. Neither of us have
never broken five minutes in the mile.
This is the year, I tell Hans, sure of myself. I
have come close in the indoor meet.
This is the year.
I ask Hans what he thinks about Peacock being cut
from the team.
“It’s like what happens Jose. It’s like what happens
every year. Kids gets in trouble. Some
shit happens and they can’t recover from it.”
Hans tells me that parents just don’t seem to get
involved down here the way they do in other schools say like Richwoods.”
Hans says that hell, most of the kids down here are
parents.
I think about Beano and Corrine and about Lori. I think about Tabitha how we never talked
about it but how Tim down the street heavily insinuated that she was pregnant.
I run every day. Down the steps into the locker
room, into the peeled-eye-liner blue, infused with the heavy stench of
masculinity; I descend, my back pack of creased over books Kick off the thick heels of my Harley boots
inside the locker room, switch into the runner-shorts, windmill my stretches,
wonder where it is that I am to go next.
The mental countdown is beginning to collapse inside
my skull. Calendar dates stumble like Arctic Squares. Like a tumbling tray of
insect ripped iced- cubes. White sheaths ripped off the desk like panties. Like a
maxi-pad fraught with a sliver of blood on the arch of cotton.
I am leaving in less than a month and still there is
nothing.
I call Nat Pflderer. A voice picks up that sounds
like it may be him. I ask if Nat is there. He says who is this. When I tell him
my name is David Von Behren and I am traveling overseas with him in a couple of
week as the local delegates of the journal Star the voice states that he hasn’t
seen/and/or heard from Nat at all so he’s probably at wrestling practice, hanging
up before saying goodbye.
***
It is St. Patrick’s day. I wear My Manual Cross Country
jacket with a green turtle neck underneath. All I can think about is running
every day. All I can think about is that my limbs are finally healthy. All I
can think about is breaking free from Madame Suhrs 6th hour French
class and escaping into the dank catacombs of the locker, gearing up for track,
giving a shout out to Coach Ricca.
It is Saint Patrick’s day. The first outdoor met is still two weeks away.
It is St. Patrick’s day. Mr. Reents is seated on his desk like a jovial pumpkin. He is always convivial. He has culture. He always has a smile on his face. He passes out this week’s vocab test. He plays Irish folk music. He tells us that if you want to get extra credit on our quiz we just have to be Irish since it is St. Patrick’s day.
“If you want to become Irish all you have to do is an and Oh apostrophe or a Mc in front of your last name on the test That’s all you have to do.”
I emulate my friend Patrick who is now at Limestone. It is a cognate of Irish/German. McVonBehren. It sounds like how sauerkraut might be served on a sesame seed bun at McDonalds.
When the test comes back a week later I get a 110.
Mr. Reents asks me if I have received anything for my itinerary from Parade, the glossy slip informing me where I am going when I traverse overseas in all of a month.
I tell him I have not.
After school we go out to the loose cinders that is Russell field behind
the high school. Hans LoGrotto has just finished his swim season.
We are timing our mile. We are saying go. And we are
off. I hurl my limbs as if there is no
tomorrow. I am off. I am pushing myself. I doctor the first lap at 67 seconds.
It is state qualifying pace. Coach Winkler looks amused. I am ahead. I am an
aerial steamboat. I am thinking about the benevolent china bones cheek bones of
the girl I sit with in steady hall. The girl with the blonde hair who sits by herself
in the lunchroom and doesn’t have any friends. I a thinking about Mr Reents. I
am wondering if after Track practice tonight my mother will float into the
parking lot with a package that looks like a boxed t-shirt from New York that
will contain my information from PARADE. That will contain my air plane
itinerary. That will inform me of where I am going. I am running The gray clouds look like upside-down manatees. I am pushing myself. Coach Riica is looking into the stripped-birch of his wrist. He is announcing that the second lap is 2:21. I am well under five minute mile pace. I don’t look back, For some reason I want this to be the workout where I break five minute mile. For some reason I want this to be the workout that I yearned for all these years.
I continue to run.
***
We talk about it in current events. He is cult leader
the same age of Christ. He has made a new Jerusalem. He is surrounded by mostly middle aged
hygiene deficient toadies who according to the media, illegally purchased firearms.
He is being surrounded by the Federal Government.
He looks like he just walked out of a Dungeon and
Dragin conventions. He has rather thick glasses. He is a self-proclaimed
messiah.
He is claiming he is Jesus Christ. He is claiming he is the son of God. When he gets shot he tells a radio station that he is going home with his father. Federal agents send in food and milk for the kids in the compound rigged with spyware. He is having sex with thirteen years old. He is telling his followers that he is creating a New Jerusalem.
I will be in London in one month time.
***
St. Patrick's day night we go over to my Aunt Jan's house. Every year my aunt Jan gives
my father a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream for Christmas. On St. Patrick ’s Day my aunt brews a pot of
Gloria Jeans coffee and measures a small cup. She is showing us slides of the trip she took to England and
Scotland almost a decade before, in the summer of 82, when I was all of six
years old. My dad is sipping Bailey’s and Irish coffee. She is showing us
slides of Westminster Abby. She is showing us slides of the lush valleys of
Scotland.
It is St. Patrick ’s Day. A month from now I will be
overseas.
When I leave Aunt Jan informs me that she has a gift for me.
She hands me a bag that looks like a flattened microwave popcorn satchel. It
looks like something Robocop might use to ferry a sack lunch in that is
purportedly to be used to stow used rolls of film so when the package goes
through x-rays and customs the film itself is not damaged.
As I am leaving she tells me David,
have a great time.
I give her a hug. I still have yet to talk with Nat Pflederer. I still have yet to hear from PARADE.
***
I run every day. I am focused on whittling my mile time down to five even. I am monopolizing more time than is necessary trying to hang on to my C plus avg. in cool Joe Thomas' class. Since I transferred math classes I am acing everything in sight.
Every day I check the cheeky jowls of the mailbox with hopes of hearing something Parade.
Every day I check the cheeky jowls of the mailbox with hopes of hearing something Parade.
Everyday there is nothing.
Nothing at all.
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