My friendship with Tommy was renewed after a year's intermission. I visited Mr. Q and Mr. Warnock often, especially the days when life wasn't going all that well. Their doors were always open to me.

I didn't think about the promise or the little ruse I used to get to go to Suitland, not until track season. It was the reason I was at Suitland, as far as my parents were concerned anyway. I had promised I'd go out for track. I wasn't a go-outer and the idea wasn't very appealing. I'd be giving up my afternoons with Tommy and that wasn't appealing at all.

I never got along with that many people. I wasn't big on structure or being told what to do. I wasn't big on any of the things that I figured were necessary once you went out for a team.

The day they announced tryouts for track, I stopped at the end of the hall that led to the boy's locker room. I went down that hall every day on my way to gym class but this was different.

"Anyone interested in joining the Suitland High School track and field team, report to the hallway at the entrance to the gymnasium at 3:30 today. Coach Daniel Becker invites you to join."

The picture of the track team was the last picture in the line of major sport teams at Suitland. Football, baseball, and basketball led the way, while track and field brought up the rear. In the picture of last year's track team, a small group of boys were gathered around a smiling neat round-looking man. He wore a sports coat and tie. Between the man's two front teeth was a distinctive gap, and that made his smile and him distinctive.

I checked out the picture with fifteen or twenty boys standing around the man, searching for some reason why I should make the trip down the hall to track tryouts. I couldn't find a single reason. I wasn't a joiner and I wasn't going to start joining now.

Why give up my freedom?

And as I turned to walk away from the hallway to go catch up with my friend, it hit me. There was only one reason to take the walk down that hall: I heard Mr. Q's voice inside my head.

"When you get up there, Charles," he said, turning me so I was looking directly at the high school. "When you get up there, I want you to promise me, you'll run track."

I had made the promise and it wasn't one I could walk away from. I went to the locker room and dressed for practice. My quandary was over for the time being but going out for track and staying out for track were two different things. Maybe I wouldn't make the team?

The Suitland track team did not come without reputation, all bad, and that was yet another reason that made me regret making that promise. It was the least successful sports team. The standing joke wasn't about winning or losing but if there would be points scored. It wasn't much of a team by reputation but it was the team I promised to join.

When I reported to the prescribed hallway, numerous boys were already leaning on heaters that were a cherished commodity running along the hall under the otherwise floor to ceiling windows. Those heaters were the only thing between us and frostbite on days like this. I made my way to a spot behind the other boys who were gathered there by the time I left the locker room. No one knew I was there. I still had thoughts that I could just slip away and no one would ever know I had been there.

A boy I would come to know as Johnny Green had taken the floor, laughing and joking with each new arrival, who were mostly juniors and seniors. Two boys from my class would show up later that first week, but neither of them would stick, making me the only sophomore to participate in track that year. Juniors were the most plentiful and a half-dozen seniors made up the rest of the team.

Johnny Green was loud, creating a constant buzz that annoyed me as he greeted each new arrival until there were perhaps thirty-five boys. Everyone knew everyone else, or so it seemed, and I stayed to myself, avoiding the familiarity. Later in the season I would wonder where all of these guys went, when we couldn't cover all the events. Out of the original guys that came long enough to be in the team picture, fewer than twenty-five would be available for competition, but it was all very chummy that first day and I suppose no one was there for a more obscure reason than me.

Coach Becker made his appearance, saying, "Hi, I'm Coach Becker. Thanks for coming out for track. I see lots of familiar faces and a few new ones. Welcome to Suitland track."

Finally order.

Order was followed by hand shaking and a great deal of back patting as Coach Becker greeted boys from previous seasons. He called them by name and they called him Coach. Johnny Green and Coach did what I'd describe as a stand-up comedy routing as they recalled people who were long gone and humorous events associated with the track team. It did nothing ease the concern about my involvement with the team.

I finally let my butt slide down the front of the heater I'd claimed as my own, until I was seated on the too cold floor. I stayed in contact with the heater as much as possible to insulate myself from the freezing cold that ran up the floor each time the doors to the outside opened. I yawned and waited as the comedy routine really got rolling. Laughter abounded while I wondered what happened to track tryouts.

Coach Becker started off each track practice with story time. All we needed was cookies and milk to make it perfect for me. It would be something about his high school days, or his college years, where he ran track and where he learned many of the lessons he'd try to pass on to us. It would take me most of that season before I actually listened to these invocations of experience. Listening was a lot like reading for me. I started off intending to listen for something I could use, but inevitably my brain would be working on five other things at the same time and so nothing ever made enough sense for me to listen for long by this time of day.

Only after story time would we get down to business.

"Well, time to get down to business. Let's elect a captain," he said, as Johnny Green stood at his side.

Names were put into nomination and Johnny Green was the guy that got most of the votes. I wasn't surprised.

"We have a lot of work to do, gentlemen. I'm glad we have some experienced guys back and I see a couple of new faces. We have good sprinters, some good distance men, and our field men have experience. We do lack depth in some events. If any of you want to try a field event, we'd be glad to have you. Maybe this year we'll be better at covering all the events."

He talked on and on and the heat filtered down on me, making me drowsy. I yawned and tried to listen but we'd sat for too long by this time. I was ready for the coach to tell us to hit the showers.

I glanced out at the foreboding winter day and thought that there was no way we'd be going outside. It was getting darker by the minute and the wind was blowing trash up into the air, swirling it around near the lights on the poles in the parking lot. The electric wires swung abruptly back and forth. I shivered and hugged my heater.

I was ready to fall asleep when the door was pushed open and I looked up to see all the boys spilling out into the cold. Coach Becker forced his way out into the gale with his tie blowing back over his shoulder. I got to my feet and brought up the rear. He wasn't serious?

When I hit the door, the frigid air hit me like a hammer. I went from drowsy to totally aware of the bitter afternoon. Bending my head into the wind, I protected my eyes from the air that was thick with dirt.

Having become accustomed to the heat, my body shook and shivered from the shock as I followed the crowd. Coach Becker stopped under the goalposts on the near end of the football field. He had to yell his orders for all of us to hear.

"Two laps around the track. Go out through the fence and into the gravel pit. Run down behind the junior high. Come around the far side and come back in through the gate at the far end of the field, take two more laps, and hit the showers."

He guided us to what I imagined was the geographic center of the track's front stretch where you'd find the start/finish line. All of the boys jammed in together for warmth. There was giggling and laughing, elbows everywhere, and some guys complained as other guys went out of their way to annoy anyone in their proximity.

Coach Becker yelled, "Go!"

Everyone took off, pushing and shoving each other and having a jolly time doing it. I found myself in the center of a mass of boys that writhed as we moved toward the first turn. I got an elbow in my ribs and I looked for someone to slug as someone else stepped on my frozen foot, and the next thing I knew, I'd been pushed to the outside of the mob. When I stepped in one of the many ruts left by years of harsh winter rains and almost went down, someone was nice enough to push me back toward the center of the runners, allowing me to get my balance, but I moved back outside of the pack, preferring the ruts to the happy jostling boys. I found the track became smoother the further outside I ran. I accelerated until I was moving toward the front of the pack and I decided if I was going to make an impression, this would be my only chance. I moved into the lead and started running away from the laughing, jabbing, bouncing boys, who were having more fun than should be allowed. I shivered as I broke the cold all alone.

Being a sprinter, I knew my speed wouldn't be a factor for long. I would run faster for now and put more distance between me and them. My father had given me one piece of advice on the morning's journey to school, when I told him track practice was starting today.

"Get the coach to ask you your name and you'll make the team," he had told me.

My father wasn't given to dispensing much advice and so that jewel stuck in my mind as I accelerated more. I needed to do something so well that the coach noticed me. I kicked up my speed and the jagged air scorched my lungs as I was forced to breathe in bigger gulps. Now all I had to do was make it back around to where Coach Becker stood under the goalposts and stay in the lead. I looked back at the group running twenty yards behind me as I stayed to the outside down the backstretch.

My junior high socks had sunk down into my junior high sneakers and I was rubbing blisters on both of my heels. I was the only one in shorts and a T-shirt. Everyone else had on sweat suits. One other boy, Merrill, had on a sweatshirt but only shorts.

The bitter wind hounded me into the third turn.

I looked back over my shoulder as my ears and nose started to burn along with my lungs. I was leading by thirty yards but that didn't seem like all that much if I wanted to make an impression before I collapsed. I tried to speed up some more, at least not slow down, and I came onto the front stretch as the loud boys were just leaving the backstretch.

The coach stood just inside the football field at the far end of the track. I watched the coach as I forced myself down the track and passed the bleachers. He was jotting something down on the clipboard he carried. As I approached the corner where he stood, I had a substantial lead on the rest of the pack and while I had done everything I thought I should do to be noticed, there was one difficulty, he never looked up.

He didn't notice that the new kid was running his track team into the ground, not to mention himself. What was wrong with this guy? I wanted to scream, look at me, but that would be too bold. I had done my part. He needed to do his.

I prayed he'd notice so I could let up, but he didn't. I started down the backstretch again, not knowing, if I could make it a second time and keep the lead I had built up. I did all I could to keep up my speed. My nose and ears were throbbing from the cold and my heels felt as though they might fall off. The blisters had formed, burst, and were now forming again as the socks sat in a lump under my foot and the liquid froze to my heel as it was leaking down into my tennis shoe.

By the time I came onto the front stretch again, my lungs were burning as if they were on fire. The air had gone so thin that I couldn't get enough into my lungs to do much good. It was so cold that it was jagged and tearing at my insides as I tried to get as much as I could.

I was now fifty yards ahead of the group that continued to run together. They had fallen silent now and did nothing but run as some strung out behind the group in single file. I looked up toward the corner where the coach still stood writing on his clipboard. He had refused to look.

In reality it had only been a couple of minutes but it seemed like forever to me. What was wrong with this guy, I wondered, as I approached the turn for what would be the final time. If I didn't get his attention now it was over. I would never be able to keep up that pace for the run through the gravel pit. As I passed him, I looked at him, hoping he'd finally look up out of the clipboard. It would only take him a second to notice me for Pete sake. He didn't look and my heart pounded in my ears as my stomach sunk. I'd never worked harder to achieve something in my entire life and he hadn't even noticed, I thought, as I looked for the gate where I'd exit the track.

"Hey ... Hey ... What's your name?" He asked, as I noticed him running along beside me with his tie blowing crazily around his neck. He was just inside the track, running on the grass, keeping pace with me. He'd done it. He asked me my name.

"Charles! My name is Charles," I said, suddenly feeling like a million bucks, albeit a million bucks on ice.

"Take it easy, Charles. Don't burn yourself out the first day," he advised me.

He noticed me.

He dropped back, letting me head for the outskirts of the school where I'd stop to pull up my socks and rest my seared lungs. I didn't want to look at my heels. I knew it would be bad.

Todd a miler and then Gorely a quarter man, passed me a few seconds after I sat down just out of sight of the school.

"Come on, kid. Great run. Don't quit now," Todd said as I pulled my socks up over my wounds.

My heels burned as I pulled the shoes back on. I sat there without energy and thought of the distance that I had yet to run as Johnny Green came a few seconds after the first two. He turned to run backwards as he passed me.

"Come on. Don't stop now. You're hell once you get moving. Come on. Follow me. I'll run with you and it'll make it easier on you. What's your name anyway?"

"Charles," I said for the second time since I'd gone out for track.

I finished tying my shoes and jumped up to accept the invitation. I didn't have a clue where the path went or how I got around the junior high school. This way I wouldn't have to worry about it.

I ran just behind Johnny and found it easier than running alone as he led me over hill and dale as we ran down behind my old school. We came back to the track after rounding the far side of the junior high. We continued running in the same order and with Johnny breaking the wind for me, I had nothing to do but run. He made a comment every once in a while but I mostly just said, "Uh huh."

As I entered the track behind Johnny, Coach Becker turned toward the high school and walked away. He'd asked me my name and that was a victory. I wasn't sure why I felt so good about that when I felt so bad otherwise. Todd and Gorely ran together twenty yards ahead of Johnny and me. I figured finishing fourth behind bigger and older guys wasn't all that bad. At least the coach had waited to see I hadn't quit.

The four of us were finishing our two laps as the next boys returned from the gravel pits. As they started on their two laps Johnny was leading me out of the gate that would take us back to the high school and heat. Much to my dismay the newest arrivals followed us, not running the obligatory two laps as per instructions. This was difficult for me to excuse. I took it as a personal insult that I had to run the extra distance and they didn't, but it was more than that. They had failed to do as the coach instructed, and to me that demonstrated their seriousness about track and field.

Like many things with the track team, this incongruity aggravated me no end. Perhaps it had more to do with my own desire to slack off, even though I never would. My inability to accept boys as they were would keep me at odds with some of them for a long time. What I saw was processed through my limited experience with people, and my inability to take care of my own business and leave other people's alone would get me scolded more than once by more than one teammate, whose respect I did need. On that first day, while I was looking for some reason to be out for track, the lack of dedication demonstrated by the majority of boys was no help at all.

That day I was mad at everyone except Todd, Gorely, and Green. I was even mad at myself for the destruction I'd wrought on my body all for the sake of making an impression. I did not understand why I'd do such a thing and I'd be paying for it for a long time to come.

I'd be even madder when I found out everyone who came out made the track team. We didn't have enough guys to run all the events. Seemingly, the effort I made and the damage done was for nothing, although I didn't know it that first day. Then there was the respect I gained from guys who witnessed the event, but it was a lot more simple that day. I nursed my wounds and withdrew inside myself, making an effort to recover before I faced my father.

I sat on the bench in front of my gym locker, trying not to fall into it. My face was now burning along with my lungs. A few guys patted my back when they passed and I thought that strange. Mike Todd stopped to chat on his way out. He had short dark hair, dark intense eyes, and he needed a shave.

"What's your name?" he asked tentatively in a soft voice.

"Charles," I said, forcing myself to look up at the boy's face.

"I'm Mike. What do you run, Charles?" he asked, seeming mildly interested.

"I sprint," I said, positive of it by this time.

"He's a sprinter," Mike laughed happily to guys who were apparently waiting for the answer. "He sprints!"

"Hey, he's a sprinter," Paul Gorely yelled at someone else.

"Really?" came the laughing reply. "Could have fooled me."

There were several guys on the other end of my bench that took a long stern look at me. These were the sprinters and they would not be so easily convinced. It would take more than an icebox run to make believers out of them, but it was obvious they found no humor in the news.

I finally got myself together, pulling myself weakly up off the bench, limping toward the door with shoes in hand, unable to get them on my battered feet. I no longer worried about what I looked like to the other boys. It would take energy I didn't have. I worked my way toward the hall and the heaters where I planned to wait for my father. My insides were still frozen.

"Charles!" The voice came from the coach's office as I passed the open door.

"Yes, sir?" I said, sticking my head in the door to face the coach one on one for the first time.

"What's your event?"

"I'm a sprinter," I said.

"Sprinter?" he said, before laughing unconvinced. "Are you sure? I mean I could use another good distance man. I have sprinters."

"I'm a sprinter," I said, remembering that day's run all too well.

"Oh! I dug a pair of sweats out for you. I'm sorry they aren't much. I don't think you should be out in this weather in just shorts and a T-shirt, Charles. Wouldn't want you to get sick."

I wasted no time reaching for the sweats on the corner of the desk. I opening the shirt and read the epithet, Suitland Track & Field.

"I made the team?" I asked.

I guessed, I'd become a regular comedian since joining the track team because Coach Becker laughed again, looking at me to see if I was serious, but deciding to take no chances.

"Yes. You made the team. Practice same time tomorrow."

It was important for me to hear those words from him, although I was sure I should have made the team, since he'd asked me my name.

I left with the sweat suit in my arms, heading for the heaters.

The heat had a similar affect on me as before. I started yawning as it warmed my clothes, my bottom, but had no ability to reach my still frozen insides. I was still shivering as I clutched my new sweats to my chest.

The locker room door banged and someone came up the hall toward where I sat. I was about half asleep when the voice forced my eyes back open.

"I'm Whitey. I'm a sprinter. We'll be running together," he said, not hesitating to come right over to me.

He pushed his books up under his arm and stuck out his hand for me to shake in a sincere fashion. I almost fell off the heater, trying to hold onto my sweats and shake his hand. This was the only guy I knew. He played football and I'd seen him score a touchdown during a game. As he passed by me, he took off his helmet as he walked back to the bench. I had recognized him right off.

"I'm Charles," I said.

For the first time I felt welcome. Whitey didn't have to stop. He didn't have to come to me. He'd made the effort and it was good for me.

"See you tomorrow, Charles," he said, backing away and placing his butt on the silver lever that opened the door. He pushed himself out into the cold, ducking into the wind as he trotted off into the dark.

A few minutes later Johnny came up the hall, stopping in front of me with a big friendly smile.

"You're hell, kid. What's your name?"

"Charles," I repeated for him.

"Yeah, you said that. I'm Johnny."

"I know. Team captain."

"Yeah, I guess I am. You're a sprinter? I sprint some. I run the quarter and the half, too. Jack of all trades, master of none. You'll do okay, Charles. You got guts, you know. How are the blisters?" he asked, looking at the shoes resting on my lap.

"Fine," I said, as Johnny put his back against the door and went out. "See you tomorrow."

The three people who would be most instrumental in my effort to adjust to running track had all talked to me since I left the locker room. Why these three? I can't be sure, but things happen in ways that aren't always apparent at the time. It was all new to me and these seemingly unrelated factors would have an impact on my decision whether or not to stay on the team.

Before anyone else came up the hall my father came around the corner, pulling up close to the doors.

I fought the cold as I dashed out to the car, slipping into the front seat and wasting no time getting the door closed. The heater was blowing full blast, forcing hot air into my face. My hair had done a quick freeze, still being wet from my shower. As soon as the heat hit me, my hair started thawing. Water was soon running down my face. I was too tired to wipe away the water as it dripped down my face.

In a minute we were turning onto Silver Hill Road and heading toward the house. We were at Suitland Road before he spoke to me.

"He ask you your name?" he said, remembering his advise.

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Did you make the team?"

"Yes, sir."

"Told you," he said confidently.

The heater blew, the water ran, and I fell asleep.


Send Rick an email at quillswritersrealm@yahoo.com

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