Perchance to Dream

by Lyssa Chiavari

  I feel my life skidding to a halt. There’s no room for anything in my life other than the game. I know people who claim to eat, breathe, and sleep something, but even they think my level of dedication to this sport that I love is insane. Even Beth, the girl I date off and on, knows that when baseball season starts, she’s better off breaking up with me than trying to make dating work.

  “Well, uh, what would you suggest?” I say it, even though I don’t mean it. I don’t care about Wally’s opinion. I just want to get signed up and go play for my next team.

  “It may seem a bit late to get involved in any other school activities, but you do have your entire senior year to consider. Think about something like, oh, say, student council? You could show a community-minded spirit, perhaps an aptitude toward politics on some level, maybe even demonstrate some team building skills. It will give you that extra little bit of ‘oomph’ that you might need to get your application through. Our deadline is December. By then, you ought to have been able to establish yourself in another activity well enough.”

  I have until December to turn this around. It’s just a little detour, that’s all. I have to take this route to get into college so I can play ball. It’s just student council, I shouldn’t have any problem getting elected. Everyone in school knows who I am. They’re clamoring to say “hi”, just to touch a little bit of the glory that follows me off the field. I am a star and all of them know it.

  Wally leaves and my parents look at me. I just shrug and say, “Guess I’ll run for student council, then. How hard can it be?”

  They don’t have any doubts. The next day, Mom buys me supplies so I can make posters. She even prints out a bunch of pictures of me playing to put on them. They’ll know who they’re voting for when they see them. It makes sense to me. It’s strategy. I know how to deal with this.

  The way our school is set up, the student council holds their elections in September. There isn’t much to take care of when it comes to official business until then, I guess. The committees who are in charge of the activities and that stuff are mostly volunteers. I know that because of Beth. She’s really into planning and decorating for the dances. That’s girl stuff that doesn’t interest me much, so I just leave her to it, except when they need a guy tall enough to hang stuff on the walls or whatever.

  The first week of school, there’s an assembly. That’s when you announce you’re running. So, on the first day of school, I walk in to Mr. Peretti’s office and declare my intention to run, first thing in the morning. He raises his eyebrows at me and stares at me a long time before he says, “Really, Mark? I mean, it’s, okay, nice to see you do something besides play ball, but I’m kind of surprised to hear that you’ve taken a sudden interest in student council.”

  “Yeah, I talked to a recruiter this summer, from a school I really want to go to. He says I gotta be more well-rounded, so he suggested I do something besides baseball. I’ve got to December to show ‘em that I’m a good candidate for them.”

  He nods. “It always does come back to baseball with you, doesn’t it?”

  I just shrug. He acts like I don’t know anything else, and maybe I don’t. I’m a specialist, but that doesn’t mean I can’t adapt to a situation. I have to do that all the time on the field. You don’t get to assume that the other guys are going to play exactly the same way they did from the beginning of the season to the end of it. They learn, they get better, and if you don’t learn and get better, too, you just blow the whole game before you’ve even started.

  “You gonna put my name in as an official candidate or what?”

  Mr. Peretti sighs, but he takes out his pen and scribbles a note onto a page of lined paper. He uses the same kind of notebooks most of his students do. It’s kind of sad—you’d think he’d get better ones.

  “Have a particular office you intend to run for in mind, Mr. Corey?”

  “President, Mr. Peretti. I’m going to be president.”

  “Of course you’re going to be student council president. Good luck, Mr. Corey. You can begin posting your campaign materials at two tomorrow afternoon. The speeches will occur at the Friday assembly. You will have five minutes to state your platform and make whatever campaign promises you think you’ll manage to push through the council.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Peretti. Have a good day.”

  Even though I’m not allowed to put my posters up yet, I start campaigning right away. I tell a few people that I’m running, because I know they’ll spread the word. It’s a hot topic of gossip, after all—Mark Corey, state champ pitcher, running for student council president. Of course, there are the extra little tidbits they’ll throw in there, making sure everyone knows what a cool guy I am. They make sure to point out that I dominate on the diamond, so I’ll be sure to see to all of their concerns.

  I go through classes just like normal. Roger’s got basically the same schedule as I do, except for a couple nerd-bomber extraordinaire classes he takes in the afternoon. It makes it easier to match up homework assignments. He just makes sure he gets my homework done on time, and I make a point of sitting next to him in class.

  Everybody knows that I only deal with the best, and since I always sit next to Roger, he earns extra cred as the smartest guy in school. You’d think that since I don’t have time for all this classwork crap that means that I bomb every test I ever take. Me and Roger have this system, though. See, the homework, it’s just busy work. Everybody knows that. The teachers don’t want to have to deal with a bunch of whiny students, so they just give you tons of stuff to do so you’re all worried about getting it done and keeping up your grades.

  Even Roger thinks half our work is pointless, which is why he’s so willing to take care of it for me. About a week out from the test, though, Roger makes some drill cards for me with the major stuff we’re going to have to know. This is where Roger turns out to be my equal when it comes to strategy. He can figure out with scary accuracy what kind of stuff any of our teachers are going to put on those tests. I miss a few answers here and there, but my test scores are consistent, and I never run the risk of getting caught. You get caught cheating on a test, you get expelled. If I get expelled, that means that I can’t play ball anymore, and I will not let that happen.

  I know there are people who would be surprised that I do actually study for the tests. I figure they don’t matter. All that matters is that I get through the tests and get that much closer to getting out of here.

  As the day wears on, I notice that there are clusters of kids hanging back to talk to each other. They whisper and look my way. At first, I think it’s because they’re like most of the rest of the student body. A lot of them smile at me and give me nods or looks of approval, because they know what I’ve done for this school. Most of them don’t talk to me, though, because they know it’s not going to get them anywhere. I’m a busy guy and I’ve got important things to do. They can’t do anything for me, so they’re better off getting out of my way so they don’t become obstacles.

  It’s the way the world works. It’s the way the world always works. No matter where you go, there are big fish and there are little fish, and the big fish eat the little fish. I’m a big fish here, and I’m only going to become a bigger fish. The minnows need to swim away.

  But when I see a few more of them, I realize that they aren’t giving me the usual looks of admiration or envy. They’re looking at me like they can’t stand me. I have no idea what that’s about. I don’t even know most of their names. Whatever their problem is, it can’t have anything to do with me. I’ve never done anything to them.

  As the week passes, though, the rumor mill keeps churning. The whole school knows I’m a candidate for student council president now, but I’ve found out that there’s a group of kids who are actually trying to keep me from getting elected. They’re the ones whispering in the corners to each other, talking about how I’m just a jock and the only thing I care about is myself and baseball. They’re sure I’m going to ruin the school.
I can’t see how that could happen, though. There’s only so much power they give the student council.

  The day before the speeches, they actually issue a statement, posting it along with all the campaign posters in the halls. It’s smear tactics, pure and simple, trying to put doubts in everyone else’s heads. They’re all about how leadership on a baseball field doesn’t equate to leadership in the classroom, and they list off a few things I’ve done that seem to make their case that I’m arrogant.

  And, yeah, maybe I didn’t exactly make them all feel welcomed when they first moved to town. Maybe I didn’t invite any of them to any parties that I’ve had. Maybe I don’t acknowledge them on a day-to-day basis. But I’m not the only one who treats them like that. They’re just trying to make me look like a jerk.

  I don’t give them much thought. I don’t need to. I practice my speech instead, because I’ll have to sound impressive. They won’t care whether or not I make sense, they’ll care that I can talk like I know what I’m doing. That’s not hard. I do it all the time in class. There are a lot of teachers here that seem to think you have to participate in class discussion to earn your grade.

  I go through my speech twice. I don’t want to waste my time on stage stuttering around, not when I have idiots trying to take down my campaign. They don’t matter, and neither do their stupid statement posters.

  When it’s time to give my speech, I point out that all of them know me. They know what I can achieve when I set my mind to it. The Bombardiers are three-time state champions, and that happened with my guidance. I’m the pitcher and the team captain, and I ushered them to victory, even as a freshman, when everyone was sure that we’d end up dead last at the tournament.

  They’re cheering as I promise that I’ll make our school a better place. I don’t give any specifics. I don’t indicate that this is a little step in a much bigger climb. I just tell them that we’ll be cooler than any other school, we’ll be admired for the way that we do things, and all they have to do to put us ahead of that game is just elect me.

  After the speeches, Mr. Perretti explains how everything is going to work. There are seven candidates for president, so instead of just a straight ballot election, they’ll take the top three. Those three will have to get enough support to stay in the race next week, in the form of signatures from the student body. Each of us will have to get at least sixty. Once we hit that magic number, we’ll be allowed to give another speech—this one eight minutes long—and there will be a final election.

  He keeps talking about things like primary races and a bunch of crap that I think Roger tried to help me memorize for civics class last year. Whatever. It’s all democracy, and all I have to do is get sixty students to say they like me enough to sign a petition to keep me on.

  I have four days to get my signatures. That’s just fifteen signatures a day. I get more high fives than that in an afternoon. It’s going to be cake.

  Except it isn’t. The people that used to cheer me on the field have been listening to those stupid nerds. I get brushed off, smiled at, declined. It feels like I’m losing my mind. All I have to do is get a few lousy signatures on a piece of paper to secure my future. None of them care.

  The guys on my team all sign, easily enough, but I’m not sure if it’s because they want me to get on student council or if they just feel like they should, for the good of the team. After all, we’ve still got one more season. We take that championship in the summer, we end up holding a state record. Nobody’s ever done that before, and they know they aren’t getting anywhere near that title without me.

  Beth makes a point of signing where all of her friends can see her. They’ll follow her lead. She’s always been able to do that, get people to do the stuff she thinks they should. She even manages to get me to do stuff for her, too. As soon as she signs my petition, she smiles up at me. She’s beautiful. She knows it, too.

  “So, you’ll be taking me to the Homecoming Dance.”

  It’s not even a question. Not that I’ve ever expected Beth to ask me anything. She’s like me. We get what we want. Both of us have plans, and neither one of us has ever let anything get in the way of that. She’s just lucky that so many of her plans either fit mine or have no real effect on anything I’m trying to do. Beth is like everything else in my life. She either helps me or, as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t exist.

  “Guess so. When is it?”

  “Next weekend, Mark. You’ll have to go anyway, that’s when the next speech is.”

  “Sure. I’ll get you at five-thirty.”

  She nods. That’s always the plan when we go to a dance. The dances start at seven. I pick her up at five-thirty, we get something to eat, then we go to the dance. It takes very little preparation on my part to pull it off, and it makes her happy enough that she dates me when she feels like it.

  Once Beth is done signing, her friends step up to sign their names, too. High school is a brutal place. You either fit in or you get left in the dust. Some of us figure out how to keep ahead of that game way faster than others.

  It still takes me the whole four days to get all the signatures. I get so many stupid questions about what my plans are for my term and how I see myself improving the school. It’s like they expect me to fix all their problems. The thing is, not one of them realizes that whatever their little problems are, they aren’t mine, and if they want something done about it, they should do the same thing that I’ve had to and try to fix it themselves first, instead of whining for someone else to do it.

  An hour before the deadline, I turn in my sixty signatures. Mr. Peretti frowns when he takes them. I stand there and watch as he checks them against the other signature sheets. Each student was only supposed to sign one petition, and the candidates themselves were to refrain from signing. If a candidate qualified, then they would be added as having voted for themselves, since Mr. Peretti did not anticipate any selfless voting.

  One of the other candidates had acquired seventy-four signatures, which would have put her in the race and left me cold, but she was working on homework and had asked her teacher a question. The explanation ran long and she missed the deadline by almost half an hour.

  My candidacy is formally cemented. I’ll be asking for votes to serve on the student council.

  Everything is just a step in a plan—if not yours, then somebody else’s. I’ve figured out that my classmates want me to say something that will make them feel good about voting for me. They’ll need a reason to. It takes me a while to think of what to say. This isn’t the kind of strategy I’m used to employing. Then, Roger points out that I just need to think of this speech like giving a talk to the guys in the dugout. As soon as I realize that, deciding what I need to tell them to get their votes is easy.

  On the night of the Homecoming Dance, I get on that stage and talk about how I want to be part of their team. I’ll listen to their concerns and make this student council all about serving their needs. And then I give them my platform: off-campus lunches. We shouldn’t be stuck eating cafeteria lunches, when just a few blocks away we could be feasting on burgers and pizza. Right now, we have to deal with a closed campus policy that makes no sense. Tardy is tardy—we all know that—and it shouldn’t make any difference if you’re late because you were in the cafeteria or late because you were stuck in line at a fast food joint waiting to pay for your soda.

  The dance floor erupts in cheering, and I can feel the surge of adrenaline that tells me I’m going to win. It’s not even much of a contest. When the votes are tallied, I stand head and shoulders above everyone else in the results. There are congratulations all the way around. I am the new student council president.

  The losers of the race just give me sour looks. But if they wanted to win, they should have tried harder. It’s their own faults. They didn’t want it bad enough. I did.

  My first meeting is on Monday. My intent is to go in and just be there, make my presence known, and let the student council stuff that has to happen do i
ts thing. I assume that I’m a figurehead. That’s what most of these things are.

  But it’s not quite that simple. I’m supposed to run the meetings, but it’s not like it is when I’m running a pre-game meeting or a meeting at practice. There are these stupid rules that I’m supposed to follow, and something called “points of order”. Mr. Peretti actually hands me this thick book and acts like I’m supposed to read it and learn something from it. I guess that I’ll have to see what Roger can tell me about it.

  Then, people start bugging me about getting the off-campus lunch policy. Since they won’t let me get anything else done—and I mean, I’m constantly getting random people coming up to me in the halls pestering me about how I had promised—I start looking into what it’s going to take. It turns out, I have to go in front of the school board and argue our case. I can’t even ask anyone to pinch hit for me. As student council president, I have got to get up there myself and tell them why making us stay at school the whole day is so lame.

  To go before the school board, I have to schedule an appointment. It’s like I don’t even matter. I have to submit in writing why I want to speak at their next meeting. They can even tell me “no” if they want to, which I think is just ridiculous. If I had to go through all of this just to get to be president, then I think that should count as an automatic that what I say goes.

  I just want everyone to shut up about the whole thing. It gets to the point where I officially declare a nerd-free zone in the cafeteria. Some of the football guys help me enforce it. If you want to sit in the cafeteria at lunch, you have to keep the talk strictly limited to outside stuff or homework. Nobody wants to hear about what is or is not getting accomplished by the student council president while they’re trying to choke down a greasy slice of floppy hamburger pizza, because our school is too cheap to spring for pepperoni. A couple of the more annoying people resort to eating their lunches in the library, but then things cool down for a while.