by Ivy Jordan
“It’s cause you’re the quarterback.”
“I’m the apex predator.” We started walking inside.
“Apex predators are superior in every way. You are nothing but meat.”
“We’ll see about that.” I took a seat in the back row and waited for the teacher to come in while I scanned the room. Mike was the teacher’s pet. He thought that sitting in front and raising his hand every few seconds would get him an ‘A.’
I preferred to stick to the sidelines. I was a listener, not a talker or a showman. I postured, sure, but just enough to get respect. Observing the crowd was so much better than being a part of it.
If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be in school. I’d seen the way the administrators ran things. Every year tuition went up because they had control of their own salaries. They made a big show of holding meetings in the auditorium. Protesters would always show up with signs, so they hired a small army of guards to watch the place. That way they could vote on their salary and get away without getting hurt. But they didn’t stop there. They were too greedy for that.
They had a full racket of useless courses, everything from advanced calculus to oceanography. Every student had to take them, regardless of their major. That meant years of crap and less than a handful of classes relevant to their chosen career.
I called it financial aid fraud, and that’s exactly what it was. They trumped up the cost of school as high as it could go, then raked in charity and government money, all while forcing students to take as many impossible courses as they could.
The worst part was the warm and fuzzy feelings people got when they talked about the school. Teachers were authority figures, and the administrators were the guys you were supposed to listen to, not because they were in charge, but because that was the right thing to do. Only bad kids got in trouble with the principal.
I was a slave to the system, but I wasn’t about to buy into it, not fully. I was there to play football. If that meant that I had to jump through some hoops, I was willing to do it.
Professor Hamburg walked into the room toting a cart of mismatched boxes behind her, with her loose gray bun bouncing up and down. She left the cart next to her desk and looked up at the students. “Are we ready to start?” she always yelled, as if the sound didn’t carry through the room.
The students stopped talking and sat down in their seats. “I am very disappointed in all of you,” she went on, and held up a stack of papers that was sitting on her desk. “Seventy percent of you are going to walk out by the end of the month. Twenty-five percent of you are going to fail, and four percent will barely pass. Disgusting,” she handed the packet of papers to a student at the front of the room. “Take your paper and pass it on.”
Hamburg took her time to stare at the despondent faces of the students around the room. “How many of you got drunk instead of studying for your exam last night?” Four boys sitting next to one another raised their hands. “I want all of you to take a look at these smart-asses, because these are the guys that will be serving your food in two years.”
“Hey, screw you, old lady.”
“Who said that?” she scanned the crowd.
“I did,” a man stood up. He was wearing a black cap to the side and sagging jeans.
“Get out.” Hamburg pointed at the door.
He stared at her, then started squeezing past the other desks to the aisle. His knee hit the desk at the end of the row, flinging a blonde girl to the side. “Hey, watch it!”
“Sorry,” he brushed past the desk and fell over.
“Hah!” Hamburg laughed. “Get going, boy.”
He struggled to get to his feet and ran out the door.
The papers were coming closer. Hamburg sat down at her desk and pulled her laptop off the stack of boxes on her cart so she could start her presentation on the projection screen behind her.
I watched with disinterest as she went through a series of incoherent equations, detailing a process so complex that even she must’ve had trouble understanding it. It didn’t take long for my eyes to start drooping. I knew that I had to stay awake, but it was early, and I was up late the night before.
My head hit the desk and somebody tapped on my shoulder. I shot upright. “What?” When I looked around, everyone was staring at me.
Hamburg drew out the moment and stared at me as long as she could. “This is not nap time. Now take your paper. You’re holding everyone else up.” The guy in the seat next to me was holding it out for me. I snatched it away and passed the stack to the person on my right. “Are you done?”
“Yes, Professor Hamburg,” I sounded off.
“Good, and next time you come in here, make sure you get a good night’s rest. That’s probably why you got the grade that you did.”
I looked down at my test. Hamburg went the extra mile and wrote, ‘You’re a Failure,’ in big red letters at the top. “You could’ve just written the grade,” I said loud enough for her to hear.
“I tell it like it is.” Hamburg went back to her presentation.
The guy to my left laughed and held up his paper for me to see. It said, ‘Dumbass.’
“You know what I’d write if she got a ‘B?’” I whispered. We both laughed.
When the teacher finished her presentation, she lectured the students on the merits of not being stupid and went on about the evils of having too much fun. I barely noticed when the other students started shuffling out of the room.
I met Mike at the bottom of the stairs. “You failed.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And you’re falling asleep in class.”
“I really don’t want to hear it.”
“You’re gonna have to do something.” Mike dipped down and grabbed his backpack next to his desk. I could feel Hamburg behind me. She was listening.
“Well, what am I supposed to do, huh?” I wanted to run out.
“Study, you idiot. You know you have to pass two-thirds of your credit requirements for the semester.”
“There’s gotta be a way around that.”
“Hah!” I turned around. Hamburg was leaning back in her desk chair with her feet up. She was holding her phone. “I’m sorry.” She pretended to go back to reading.
“It doesn’t matter.” Mike motioned for me to follow him into the hall. “Look,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “You need to go to the tutoring center. Here’s the number.”
I snatched the paper away.
“You’ll be fine. Come on, let’s get something to eat.”
“Alright.”
Chapter Two
Ava
I loved the little booths in the library with the barriers on each end, because I could dig my nose into a book and pretend that there was nothing around me. The wall-length window to my right didn’t exist. I couldn’t see out into the courtyard where the students were running around below me. All that existed was my textbook and the diagram detailing the makeup of a boron atom.
“Hey, Jack, look at this shit.” Something fell off the shelf behind me.
“Dude, you’re gonna get us kicked out of here.” I heard feet scraping against the carpet.
“Nah, you gotta see this.”
“Aw, that’s disgusting. Put that away.”
“Look,” I heard pages ruffling and looked back. An overgrown thug with his black hat swept to the side was holding a human anatomy book open for his friend to see.
“It’s tiny.”
I cleared my throat, and the one holding the book turned around. “You got a problem?”
I could’ve gotten them kicked out, but that would’ve just gotten me into trouble, so I turned back to my book.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” The thug put the book back and passed by a little too close.
I took down the boron diagram and moved on to carbon. Then somebody knocked on the barrier, and I jumped. “Jesus, Nicole, you scared me. “
She leaned over, pressing her long black hair ag
ainst the top of the barrier. “What are you reading?”
“I’m trying to study for my physics test.” I closed the book.
“You’re going to rot your brain that way. You need sunlight. Let’s go to the lounge.” She reached around and handed me a cup of coffee.
I snatched it up and took a gulp. “Thank you so much.”
“It’s no problem.” I got up to follow Nicole into the elevator. “What have you been up to?” I asked when we got inside.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “I have been so tired all day. I got back after curfew last night, and they almost didn’t let me in the dorm.”
“What happened?”
“I met Tom at Crystal’s party, and we stayed up late talking, you know.”
“Uh-huh.” The double doors opened up to the basement, a massive complex filled with computers. At the end of the row of desks were a set of double doors that opened up into a seating area with vending machines and a TV hanging up on the wall, perpetually playing the news on mute.
We took a seat on a ringed sectional in the back corner. Nicole sat across from me and set her coffee down on the table between us. “You know you don’t have to study this much, right?”
“It’s just a quick refresher. I go over the questions every night. Grades are important, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“You graduated high school with a 4.2 average. Remember? You were begging the teachers for extra credit, and even then you weren’t satisfied. You’re literally more than perfect.”
“I like reading. It’s enriching.” I took a sip of coffee.
“You look like you were up later than I was last night,” Nicole said.
“So what if I was? At least I wasn’t getting drunk and screwing around.”
“You need a little bit of that in your life, Ava. I know it sounds dumb to you, but you can’t stay in the library every waking moment. You’ve got to have fun.”
“I don’t have time for fun. I barely have time to leave my booth. Maintaining my GPA isn’t easy, and I’m not about to let my grades slip.”
“Really? What is this? You’re going to get your degree no matter what. We both know it. It’s not like the company you work for is going to be looking at your GPA. They might not even care if you graduate.”
“There’s more to it than that.” I drank the last sip of my coffee and set it down on the table. “Is it so hard for you to believe that I actually like studying? I want to do this. Besides, I can’t tutor anyone if I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, right. The football team.”
“I’m just surprised they haven’t tried to expose themselves to me yet.”
“They’re not that bad, are they?”
“They’re primates. If I wanted to go see a bunch of monkeys throw a ball around, I’d go to the zoo.”
Nicole scoffed and took a drink of her coffee. “Come on.”
“No, I mean it. Half these guys can barely write. I swear to you they’re doing their assignments drunk.”
Nicole shook her head. “You’re probably right. Tell me you’re making headway at least.”
“I am, but not the kind I’d like. They just don’t care. Most of them aren’t going to pass, not from studying.”
“Well, I think you should go with me tonight. Jeff is having a kegger, and all the other girls are coming.”
“I can’t.”
“You just don’t want to.”
“Not particularly, no. I’ve gotta get going. I need to go over my calculus homework.”
“Alright, give me a call.”
“I will.” I left Nicole at the elevator.
Chapter Three
Channing
In high school, Coach Larson told me that eating right was the best thing I could possibly do for myself. It took me all of an hour to adopt that philosophy, and I never regretted it. I took a protein shake and a sandwich bag of broccoli out to the courtyard and proceeded to fight off an undead hoard on my phone.
I was the zombie master. I had three-inch thick adamantium armor and a plasma gun that disintegrated every piece of rotting flesh in sight with a single tap. At this point, it was just mindless destruction until a pale white hand grabbed my character’s shoulder and flipped me around. The mangled corpse was standing sideways on a broken foot, and he was holding a rusty knife that he thrust forward. I died instantly.
Mike grabbed me by the shoulders from behind and jolted me.
“I’m going to kill you.” I stood up, grabbed my bag, and held it up to bash him with it. He turned around and started running. I slammed him into the grass and put him in a headlock.
“Get off me!”
“Say, ‘I’m sorry, Channing.’”
“Screw you!”
I dug my arm into his throat. “I’m sorry, Channing.”
“I’m sorry!”
I let him go and stood up to offer him my hand. He took it, and I pulled him up so hard his feet went off the ground. When he righted himself, he socked me in the shoulder.
“Hey, that hurt.”
“You deserved it.”
I walked back to our table to get my bag and pull out a water bottle. “It is far too hot out here.”
“You won’t notice once you’re running,” Mike snagged a piece of broccoli from the bag sitting on the table.
I snatched the bag from him. “We have 15 minutes to get to the locker room.”
Mike’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t wanna.”
“Let’s go.” We took a path between the dorms and the science building, leading across the outer field, towards the gymnasium. The university spent most of their money on the athletics department. We had the best equipment, the best facilities, and an arena bigger than the one downtown. The NFL used our field when they came to town.
The locker room might as well have been a spa. There were saunas, a pool, Jacuzzi tubs, and private showers. I took my time getting my gear together and scrubbing myself down. Practice was for me. It wasn’t about bragging or snapping towels around, but some talking was required. I was the guy that everyone wanted to talk to, so I had to learn to keep myself detached.
A shrill whistle ripped through the air. “Let’s go!” Coach Saxon strode past the rows of lockers.
“Barker, front and center,” he sounded off when he reached the double doors leading out to the practice field.
“Yes, Coach.” I ran out, and the other players followed me single file. Coach popped the doors open, and we ran past as he congratulated each of us. “Good game.” When we lined up, he blew his whistle. “Four laps. Hustle, hustle, hustle.”
My feet moved faster than my mind. I ran out onto the track, closed my eyes and let the wind rush past me. There was nothing purer or more beautiful than running. It represented self-betterment, an act of will, proving time and time again that I could accomplish anything so long as I pushed myself.
The trick was not to think. The second I thought about moving my feet, or whether or not I was flinging my arms, I’d slow down and lose time. My goal was to beat my time every day. I didn’t always make it, but I pressed myself to the limit, struggling to keep my legs, my lungs, and my heart pounding. Nothing else existed but me and the field and the track lines racing past. They seemed to curve of their own accord, then straight again, past the goal, one, two, three times. I left everyone else behind, but I didn’t notice.
Competition was nothing. The only one that I had to prove myself to was myself. The only reason I played was to hone my body and keep my mind sharp. Winning was about the accomplishment and progress, but it wasn't everything. So long as I was bettering myself, it didn’t matter.
The coach was standing at the finish line when I stopped running. “Eight minutes, fifteen seconds.” He tapped the timer on his phone. “You are one hell of a runner.” He was standing next to a table with cups and an orange water dispenser. I poured myself a cup, took a drink, and threw another on my sweat-drenched face. “You’re screwing up, Barker.�
� He was still facing the track with his timer.
“What are you talking about?”
“Eight minutes, fifty seconds,” he tapped his phone. “Eight minutes, fifty-two seconds. Fifty-three.” The team was running on and he was distracted. He had us line up at the edge of the field, and we went through our exercises—sixty jumping jacks, a hundred squats, a hundred push-ups, then crunches. I got through the workout easily and moved onto field exercises, relay, then a mock game. Not once did the coach take his eyes off me. I saw him smiling when I threw a pass out to Mike and he made a goal. Afterward, I looked back and he was shaking his head.
He blew his whistle. “Dress down! Hustle, hustle, hustle.” We ran single file into the locker room, and I went back to my locker to change. “Barker!”
“Yes, Coach,” I called out.
“In my office now.” I wanted to run out. Things were supposed to be simple and easy; a quick run, a good workout—playing with the guys. This wasn’t right.
The man was military with a bright red face of leather and a gray buzz cut, but he took care of himself. His office reflected his trademark discipline, a simple stack of papers in the corner, a plain metal desk, and his tablet. He was staring down at it when I walked in and sat down.
Coach kept his eyes posted to the screen. “I’ve got three emails that I’m looking at right now. Would you like me to read one of them to you?”
“Pfft, no.”
“Channing is a disgrace to this institution. Please, for the love of God, take his face off of the jumbotron and chain him to a desk.”
“Fucking hag.”
The coach laughed. “That’s not the only one. She sent me a message this morning saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to waste good government funds on a shitty education.”
“Coach…”
“I don’t care. Hamburg might be a wretched woman, but she is your teacher, and you’re about to fail her class, and she’s not the only one either. Did you really fall asleep in calculus last week?”
“Yes, Coach.”
“Give me one good reason why I should let you play.”
I turned back and pointed out the office window, where a poster with my face on it was taped to the wall. “That stadium holds thousands of people, and I’m the reason why they’re buying tickets to see the game.”
