The first outdoor track meet of the season is against
Woodruff. It is to be my only meet before I leave overseas for England. Coach
Winkler will not let me forget that I am to run as much as possible when I am
overseas. We are running at Peoria Stadium where all of our home meets take
place. The two mile is the second event
of the day. The mile is the last, usually an hour later. There are five of us
running. Hans Logrotto, Poynter and myself from Manual. The last time my ears
registered the expired flint of a starters’ gun was when I took off in regional
pain searing down the right hand side of my leg. Woodruff has a Bushy Haired
runner who I swear looks somewhat familiar who made Sectionals last cross-country
season who I beat during our first race.
I turn to Hans Logrotto. Our goal is to break five
minutes for the mile. Yesterday in practice I was 5:05.
The two mile is first.
There is no Peacock who lead our tribe the entirety Cross Country . There is no Beano. There is no Jose.
There is the crackle of the gun and we are off,
staying in our respective lanes for the first two hundred meters. I propel ahead. I am relaxed. I am constituting the lead. My
firsts split is one 1:17. There is seven more elliptical laps to go.
I am invigorated. The clover from the baseball field
across the parking lot is flooding by senses with possibilities of glory. The
second lap s 2:31. I glance back and can see no one behind me. I am making it
personal. I am healthy. There is no stress fracture. This is my first outdoor track meet versus a
team I have dominated against before I leave for Europe. I want to make a
statement. I want to be transcendent. It
is a ridiculous pace. I don’t feel like I am pushing it. Grunts are heard
behind me like winnowing echoes. It is 900 meters into the race and I can still
smell the expired steam of the gun. As I enter my third and fourth lap Ricca
shoots me a look like I need to slow it down a bit since I still have five laps
left. At the mile I am ahead by 200 meters. My first mile is solid. It is 5:21.
There are four laps left. I think about running with my father over the cobbled
bricks of West Peoria when I was eight years old and it was cold and we wore
socks on our hands to keep warm. I think about after running two miles we would
turn and head for home along the dirty November green of Madison golf course
and father would continue to tell me that every step I take brings me closer to
home. I am in the lead. I am cruising. The Bushy Haired Kid who somehow looks
vaguely familiar is behind me. I can hear his snorts. I am pumping my arms. I am retaining my
posture. Coach Ricca is echoing out splits. Beefy cheek Coach Winkler adamantly
keeps telling me not to run like a freshman. With 800 hundred meters I can feel
someone behind me. He is breathing on my
neck. I think it is Bushy Haired Boy. I am not looking back. There is a jostling spur at my elbow. It is
the lanky kid from Woodruff. He seems to have come out of nowhere. Bushy Haired
Boy is further back. Behind him is LoGrotto. I am surging. At the mile I have a
200 meter lead I am pushing myself. I remember how Coach told me that the great
Robert Clark always used to push in the middle of the triangle at Detweiller
Park. I throw in a surge with three laps left.
I am trying to augment the velocity of my lead. I am ready to lap Poynter and Woodruffs final
runner. There are two laps left. I feel like I am slowing down. I refuse to
look back. With 500 meters left I see a
blue shirt encroaching behind me like a sail. At first I think I have already
passed him then I realized it is the syringe lanky
There is a gun
connoting one lap left in the race.
We run together. Our waists are exactly even at the
stretch. He is taller than I am. He is stride is wide. I am pushing my limbs.
In the last ten meters her pulls ahead by half a yard. The two of us cross the
finish line before toppling into a puddle of exhaustion.
It is second place. I have garnered points for my team but
second place somehow is not good enough. I am swiping my head back and forth as
if I am engendering to create a minus sign with my chin in a game of charades.
Coach Ricca is in my direction. The Bushy Haired lad who I
thought was my nearest rival was third followed by LoGrotto for fourth.
“Good race Von Behren.” Ricca gives me a stolid nod. I don’t know how I foundered the last 200
meters. I don’t know how I got beat by someone I have never seen before. Coach Winkler is looking at me as if I should have won. The Woodruff
Coach is ecstatic. His last name I will learn is Ingersoll. He has ties to city
coroner. His great-great grandfather is the pragmatist atheist bearing a statue
in the lower level of Glen Oak park historically used as the demarcating four
mile turning point in Steamboat.
I go over to shake his hand. Like the Bushy Haired lad I
learn that he is a sophomore.
“Good race man.”
Ingersoll is lanky. He is nothing but awkwardly jutting elbow and
kneecaps. He smiles. He is coy. He says that he didn’t think he’d be able to
catch me at the end.
“I don’t remember seeing you in cross country man, did you
transfer?”
The lanky kid shakes his head. He says that the PE coach saw
him running in gym class and mandated that he had to go out for track.He then
tells me that this is his first official race. I have been training my ass off
all off season again only to get hammered by novice my first outdoor race of
the season.
“Well congrats again.” I have an hour and a half til the
mile. My only other varsity race is the 2-mile relay. I am forming triangles
with my lower appendages. I am vowing to return.
***
I am the third leg of our 2 X 800 relay. It is varsity.
Neither the bushy haired lad nor Ingersoll from Woodruff are participating in
this event. I am the only white kid
running from either schools. The baton is almost glow in the dark neon yellow.
Woodruff has quality sprinters yet the race is decided in the first mile. We already have a solid lead when the baton
is bartered in my grasp of my palm. I don’t need to go all out only I do. I
extend the lead. I am flying. I am well aware that after this race I only have
fifteen minutes at best until my specialty the mile. The split on my first lap
is insane. 57 seconds. I am not done. I am kicking the emotional spurs of my
fortitude into my ribcage. I am flying. It is like I have just been shot out of
some nuclear cannon. I can feel pebbles of seat beginning to accumulate in my
hand. I two hundred meters I explode. I finish with an almost state qualifying
spilt of 2:04. Coach is looking at me like what got into me as I pass the baton
to our runner.
My high school has a 300 meter lead. Our anchor is Leatric
who ran cross-country. He is running like he is conserving energy for the rest
of the season.
As I turn my head I spit crimson commas. The back of my
mouth tastes like dry rust.
Ricca is nodding. I have one race left.
I look at the tall lanky kid with the nepotistic-namesake
who is warming up. I tell him to bring it on with a blink of my eyes. There is
a slap on my back. It is Coach Winkler.
He tells me I didn’t run like a freshman.
“I still have one more race left Coach.”
***
“David, I think when you’re over there you really ought to take in a show.” Mr. Reents says to me the day after I call Renae on her birthday. There is a splayed open copy of the New York Times art section on his deskIt is just after early bird health class. I help myself to three ever-percolating purr of Mr. Reents coffee pot. Pouring myself a Styrofoam-shot sprinkled with a few taps of sugar.
Mr. Reents points inside the Newspaper as if it is some sort of Atlas.
“Now there’s three main plays you want to see.” He assents, pointing into the center of the placard, nodding as if he is going to inform me which ones I am to see.
Mr. Reents tells me it’s a priority.
I tell Mr. Reents that I’m not sure I’ll have time with the itinerary. My English teacher tells me that I should just tell my counselors that I want to see a show and that I have money and that they should be able to hook me up.
“Whatcha do is you just go down to Leister square and on the day of the show see and they sell you half-priced tickets. Mr. Reents continues to add that it really is a bargain, before informing me that quote “we” sat up close and center at her majesty’s theatre and we only played thirty pounds a ticket while normally they were around 90 pounds.
“Now, Saigon and Les Miz are good. But the only really one that matter is Phantom. That’s the one you really just ought to see.”
Mr. Reents pats me on the back of my head.
“You really are going to have a great trip.” He tells me that he can’t wait to see the pictures. I inquire what he is doing over spring break. Once again he responds back in the third person possessive pronoun.
“We are going to be over in Austria and in part of Germany. We have a cruise lined up on the Danube.”
I still seem dubious as to why he always refers to himself plural.
“No, but David you really need to see a play. A play is the thing. Whatever you do go see a play."
***
The mile is the second to last event of the meet. Manual has
already dwarfed Woodruff in point standing. The only event Woodruff has won was
the 3200 meter where I finished second. I am wobbling up and down. I can still
taste blood in the back of my throat. I over did it on the 4 x 800 relay to
prove a point to no one but myself. Hans Logrotto and I do several 200 meter
sprints. We jump up and down. When I bend over at my waist and cough I swear
blood comes out. For a second I wonder if I pushed myself so fast that I blew
out a lung. The lanky kid whose name is Ingersoll turns to me. I hold out my
hand and wish him good luck. He makes it a point to mention that this is his
first high school 1600. He is a year ahead of me in school. I ask him what he
did last year.
“I played baseball.” He said. “I wanted to be a pitcher but
I wasn’t very good. When I was a pitcher all I did was walk runners, now all I
do is run.”
Before I know what is transpiring the salute of the gun has
erupted. Before I know it I am in fourth place. The Bushy Haired lad is
jockeying for position of the inside lane at the 100 meter mark. He is accelerating ahead followed by his Lanky-limbed
cohort. I have to push to keep up with
them. At three hundred meters in as we swerve to complete the first lap Hans
LoGrotto is nowhere in sight. I am third at the first lap with a time of 1:11.
Well below the sub-five minute mile pace.
After the first lap the three of us seem out of breath. Like
we know we kicked it too hard. The Bushy- haired kid spits and throws in a
surge. I am trying to hang with him. I pass lanky-limb and begin to run in
Bushy Boys shadow. I can feel him
slowing down considerably. Ricca shoots me a look telling me to conserve
energy. The three of us are running like we are treading water. Our 800 meter
split reads 2:29. I don’t know what sort of game they are playing. From out of
nowhere Bushy-haried brat throws in another surge. I am staying with him. I am
landing on his heels. We sprint. We are going all out. It is like there is only
200 meters left in the race. It is like we have somehow constituted our own
vicarious finish line. Lanky-limb is now
nowhere to be found. My calves are burning, before I know what is happening the bushy-haired lad is
swearing. He bumps into me and then pushes again. We are 1000 meters into the race when I can
see him physically lose everything that is inside of him. He is falling limp.
He seems to turn around and jog in place. I don’t know what is happening.
Before I know it I am in the lead.
The final split is 3:51. I am sputtering out of gas. I don’t
know what is happening. With three hundred meters left I see Ingersoll coming
into view. He is on my cleats. We are
running together and I am not going to let him win. We are running in tandem
and I am leaving for England in six days. We are running together and
everything is a blur. There is nothing I can say to will my body to cajole past
him. At hundred meters we are neck and neck. Even the audience is assenting
that this is a classic dual. The lanky-limbed lad has a larger stride. He seems
to wobble as he runs. My time in
practice last week was 5:05. It feels like we are being gravitationally reeled
past the finish line by a force greater than ourselves. Our elbows are pumping
in synchronized swigs. There is less than fifty meters left. We are running
through the finish line in a daze and I can hear the coach from Woodruff
jumping up and down claying that Ingersoll won by something like a tenth of a
second if that.
I felt that we tied.
I am hunched over when Ricca comes up to me. He is slapping
me on the back. For the third time in the meet he is telling me good race Von
Behren. For the second time I feel like I should be apologizing.
Rica holds up a stop watch. It reads 5:15.
I grandfathered the last lap. I lost all steam even though I
was fighting.
“That was a good race. You’ll be able to catch Ingersoll.
It’s only the first race of the season. Just remember to run your race next
time.”
I nod. I finished second for the second time today. I am
only a freshman. Coach Winkler continues to look at me from afar as if I blew
it.
My dad is in the stands with his stop watch. He is smiling.
He is proud of his only son.
***
I shake Ingersoll’s hand again. I tell him I look forward to
competing against him come future competitions. The Woodruff Coach is calling
Ingersoll the next Jim Ryun. He is stating that this is his first official
track meet so watch what is to come. Logotto finished at 5:20. The bush-haired
boy was 5:21.
Ricca is claiming that we all had a good first meet. Winkler
looks in my direction and says except for Von Behren, he was thinking about
that trip he is supposed to be on in a couple of days.
I will not have a meet until late April. I will miss a third
of the season.
I wave at Ingersoll. I tell him I will see him in coming
meets. I walk up to the bushy-haired lad and shake his hand.
“Good race man You really had me pushing myself the first
couple of laps”
He smiles. He uses the word psychology. He states that he
was serving as a rabbit to wear me down so that I would be exhausted at the
end. I tell him that his strategy worked.
The guy with the Bushy hair tilts his head. He says you
don’t remember me, do you. I say no.
“My name is D'Amico. We were in a contest three years ago
when I was in eighth grade called the Young Columbus contest. The winner got to
go to Paris. We were both young but we traveled together to and from the event
together because our District Managers couldn’t make it.”
My mouth is agape. I am looking at him. Three years ago he
had a bit of a mullet. I recognize him. There is the fiber-glass of the
light bulb exploding above my forehead.
“That was you!!” I tell him, adding that he has looked
familiar.
“Yeah, I heard that year that they had to cancel the trip because
of the Gulf War so the guy who won couldn’t go. It was really a bummer too
because, damn, can you imagine, going to Paris, in the spring.”
I tell him that I
can’t. I ask him if he still has his route. He seems to go out of his way to
insist that his parents place a high priority on education and give him $100
for every A he gets on his report card. He tells me its like getting paid to
study.
I tell him yeah. He asks if I enjoy Manual. He tells me
that, after having met me at the Young Columbus contest he couldn’t imagine
attending such a school. I tell him that it’s not that bad. He asks me if there
are drive-by shooting in the hallways. I tell him at least twice a day.
“No seriously, it’s nice to meet you. I kept looking at you
all through cross country season like I know this dude from somewhere and I was
going through a box of old papers over the holidays and I realized it was you.”
I tell him thank you. The team is about ready to go for a
victory lap. D’amico asks me if I still
have my route.
“Yeah, actually, I entered the Young Columbus contest again
this year and I won.”
“!!!!”
“Yeah, I’m leaving for England in exactly a week from today.
It’s pretty crazy because I’ve never flown before.”
D’amico has a scowl enveloped into his lips. He doesn’t say
congratulations. I need to get with my team.
“I can’t believe you won that contest man, I mean, you go to
Manual.”
I stop. There is a sniff of envy. I need to get back with my
teammates.
“Yeah, well, I guess I’ll see you on the track when I get
back then.”
I turn around and trot around the track without saying
goodbye
I will miss almost two weeks of track. I was hoping to leave with a bang.I finished second. I still scored a point for our team.
Tomorrow is Maunday Thursday and the last day of classes before Spring Break. Friday is Good Friday. Sunday is Easter.
I will be leaving for England in five days time.
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