Racing the Rain

by John L Parker

  It took a moment to focus, but when his vision cleared he was able to read the watch: 64.8.

  “Do you still think you’re a basketball player?” Bickerstaff said.

  CHAPTER 19

  * * *

  NO QUARTER

  “This friend of mine,” said Trapper, “he’s pretty knowledgeable. You know the last thing on my mind is to interfere with your team, but I thought you’d want to hear what he had to say.” He was a little uncomfortable, having put on a clean shirt and long pants, rare for him. Mr. Kamrad sat in the other chair, across from Coach Bickerstaff.

  “What’d you say his name was?”

  “San Romani. Archie San Romani.”

  Bickerstaff emitted a low whistle.

  “You know him?”

  “Criminy, Trapper. Everybody knows Archie San Romani. Everybody who knows anything about track and field. Kid had his leg mangled under a truck, then grows up to be a national champion.”

  “Right, right. That’s him. They thought he was going to be the first four-minute-miler there for a while, I guess.”

  “I remember. I actually saw him run once, at the Mason-Dixon Games.” Bickerstaff shoved his baseball cap back on his head and rocked back in his swivel chair.

  He turned to Kamrad. “And what is your interest in all this, Dennis?”

  “Just a friend of the court. I’ve talked on the phone with Archie, and I’m generally in agreement with his point of view.”

  Bickerstaff turned back to Trapper Nelson. “And how do you know San Romani, anyway?” he said.

  “We worked at the same place one summer in Michigan. He was going to some college in Kansas and was working over the summer. I was on my way out west. The company was called Crown Cork & Seal, manufactured bottle caps, cans, mason jar lids, and such. Noisiest place you ever heard. We worked on the same production line, got to be pretty good friends. He weighed about a hundred and forty pounds, but he could work circles around any three of the rest of us.”

  “And you say you’ve stayed in touch with him?”

  “Just Christmas cards and such. But when young Quenton mentioned the trouble he’s been having with his legs . . .”

  “And you know Quenton how?”

  “We’re just friends. Fishing and whatnot.”

  “Okay, well, I don’t think those growing pains are bothering him anymore, not after what I saw on Monday.”

  “Oh?”

  “We’ve got this kid, Demski, eighth grader like Quenton, ran for me last year. Showed a lot of promise, but he was still young. Well, he shows up in March this year in pretty good shape and it wasn’t long before he was winning everything in sight. No one could touch him in the half mile, and he was almost as good in the 440. Cassidy, meantime, is doing okay, too. He can’t keep up with Demski, but he’s holding his own, picking up thirds, fourths, fifths—”

  “Yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you—”

  “Let me finish. This past Monday we’ve got this bear of a workout scheduled. Eight quarter miles with a 220 jog in between. I wanted them in seventy-five seconds or so, knowing Demski’s probably the only kid that can hit that, but, you know, giving them all something to shoot for—”

  “Let me guess what happened,” Trapper interrupted.

  Bickerstaff looked at him.

  “Quenton walked all over them.”

  Bickerstaff studied him. “How’d you know that?”

  “I’m right, aren’t I? What did he average?”

  “A tick over sixty-nine. Demski was seventy-one flat.”

  “That’s what I thought. You just saw the real Quenton then.”

  “What are you talking about? I’ve been coaching him straight through since the first of March. He’s never shown me anything like that before.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Bick. The kid’s been about half injured the whole time.”

  Trapper Nelson took a sheath of folded notebook paper out of his back pocket.

  “I made a few notes here from talking with Archie,” he said. “He knew exactly what I was talking about when I described Quenton’s injury to him. I said it was needlelike pains in the tops of the quadriceps that keep him from getting any knee lift. Archie said they’re caused by too much speed work too early. You get these small tears in the muscles on the tops of the thighs. Archie said he’s had them before, usually early in the season. But he says they’re easy to get rid of, you just have to take a little time off.”

  “What time off? The big meets are just coming up now! How’s he going to be ready if he’s sitting on his heinie?”

  “They just need enough time to heal, and the kid’ll be fine,” said Mr. Kamrad. “We get the same thing in rowing with the shoulder muscles, caused by pulling too hard too early. There’s no way around it, you just have to let them heal.”

  “Well, let me tell you something, Trapper, Dennis. I’ve been coaching track and field for more than a decade and I’ve never heard of this so-called injury. Plus, from what I saw on Monday, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with his quadriceps, his biceps, his triceps, or his any other kind of ’ceps. This kid is over his little episode of growing pains and he’s ready to take on the world, I tell you what. Otherwise, how do you explain what I just saw?”

  “Easy to explain, Bob. He just had a three-day weekend rest, finally giving him a chance to heal up a little bit. I’ll bet by now he’s right back to where he was before,” said Mr. Kamrad.

  Bickerstaff made a dismissive gesture. Trapper Nelson sighed.

  “Archie also had some workout suggestions,” Trapper said quietly, holding up his notes. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in seeing those.”

  “I’m pretty much all set on that score,” Bickerstaff said coldly. “But thank you for the offer. And thank Mr. San Romani when you talk to him.”

  The two got up to leave.

  “And, Dennis, I appreciate the concern,” said Bickerstaff.

  Mr. Kamrad paused at the door and gave Bickerstaff a tight smile.

  CHAPTER 20

  * * *

  PAIN AND HUMILIATION

  “Uh-uh-uh-oh,” said Demski. “The fl-fl-fl-fl-fl, waterbird is back.”

  Cassidy was miserable. They were still jogging the warm-up and already his legs were excruciating. On Monday he was invincible, and now, on Friday, he was right back where he had been before. Maybe worse.

  He knew Trapper Nelson and Mr. Kamrad had failed in their intervention attempt, and with that failure Cassidy saw his dreams of glory on the track blowing away like spindrift. He tried to assure Trapper that everything would be fine, that he appreciated his efforts, but Trapper was not to be consoled. He offered to talk to Cassidy’s parents, but Cassidy declined. He figured it would only complicate things further and Bickerstaff already had his back up. As Cassidy’s performance declined steadily during the week, Bickerstaff became convinced that he was putting on a show for his benefit, trying to convince him that Trapper Nelson’s diagnosis was correct. This seemed to anger him further, this battle of wills with one of his charges.

  The workout of the day was twelve times 220 with a two-minute walk between. He wanted them to shoot for thirty-six seconds, which meant he expected Ed and Cassidy to duke it out at that speed and the rest of them to hang on as best they could.

  “Y-y-you okay?” asked Ed as they lined up.

  “Not really,” said Cassidy. After a horrible long run the day before, he was dreading this.

  Ed finished the first one in thirty-five and Cassidy was five seconds back, his face twisted in pain. Lenny Lindstrom and Jarvis Parsley finished in front of him.

  “All right, Ed, good going,” said Bickerstaff. “Len, Jarvis, thirty-eight. Good. Walk it off. Quenton, come here a second.”

  Still gasping for air, Cassidy walked stiff-leggedly over to the coach.

  “I know what you’re doing,” he said quietly, holding up his clipboard to the side of his face for privacy. “It’s not going to w
ork. You might as well straighten up and fly right.”

  Cassidy walked back to the runners assembling at the starting line. The others were surprised to see him almost in tears.

  “All right, runners. Number two, still shooting for thirty-six. Set and go!” called Bickerstaff.

  For Cassidy it just got worse. He finished the workout, coming in farther and farther behind. Bickerstaff didn’t say anything, but Cassidy could see the look of disgust on his face. By the time he finished the eighth repetition, there were real tears rolling down his cheeks. He couldn’t help it. While the others jogged the two-lap cooldown, he walked stiff-leggedly to the gym. When he got to the stairs to the second-floor locker room, he had to turn sideways and climb them by throwing one leg straight out in front of him and rotating it over to the stair, then standing up straight on it and repeating the process with the other leg, using his arms to haul himself up.

  He was showered and nearly dressed by the time the others started wandering in. He sat for a few moments in front of his locker, staring at the clean white singlet folded neatly atop the matching shorts on the upper shelf. His racing uniform. It felt as if everyone was tiptoeing around him. He knew his face was still red, but he wasn’t even embarrassed about it.

  Finally, he stood and retrieved the singlet, unfolding it and holding it in front of him. It was spotlessly white, with a red satin sash running diagonally across the chest and a small winged “G” for Glenridge over the left breast. He remembered the incredible pride that welled up in him the first time he put it on. And every time thereafter, for that matter.

  He couldn’t believe what he had to do.

  Bickerstaff had his reading glasses on, going over the numbers on his clipboard from the day’s workout.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Cassidy walked in, tears now falling freely from his eyes. He laid the singlet, red sash up, on the coach’s desk.

  “All right,” said the coach.

  CHAPTER 21

  * * *

  ALL-COMERS COMEUPPANCE

  After a few days of inactivity, Cassidy’s legs were sufficiently healed that he could go out and shoot baskets, then jog around the court a little with very little pain. A few days after that, his legs were perfectly fine again. He could hardly believe he’d ever had the injury at all. Fixing it was so simple.

  Stiggs was still high jumping, but Randleman had given up the shot put as too boring, so Cassidy was happy to have a basketball partner back. Randleman and Cassidy started working out together, doing drills and playing one-on-one. Cassidy wasn’t nearly big enough to keep Randleman out of the key, so they had to make adjustments to the rules to make it more fair. That in itself was a little humiliating, but Cassidy got his revenge when they went running. He could tell he was still in terrific shape despite running hurt all those weeks.

  He and Randleman were playing one-on-one at the public courts on Singer Island when Trapper Nelson’s Jeep pulled up. Trapper sat on a courtside bench, watching them while drinking a huge Icee from the Dairy Queen.

  “Hey, Trap, come on and play some. We’ll get somebody else and go two-on-two,” Cassidy said.

  “No thanks, I’ll keep what little dignity I still have,” said Trapper, toasting them with his drink.

  Randleman was taking the ball out.

  “Okay, ten–nine me, win by two. You ready?” He checked the ball to Cassidy, who tapped it back.

  Randleman drove powerfully down the left side of the lane, but Cassidy managed to get ahead of him and take a good thumping before stopping the big forward. Randleman immediately pivoted away from Cassidy and began backing him into the key.

  “Three dribbles!” called Cassidy, jogging toward the backcourt and calling for the ball. That was the rule. To keep Randleman from posting up on every play, he was allowed only two dribbles with his back to the basket. With a sour look on his face, he flipped the ball to Cassidy and assumed a defensive position. Cassidy took a false step to his right and when Randleman responded he went straight up into a reasonable imitation of a jump shot. It hit the back of the rim and rattled in.

  “Tie ball game!” he said.

  Randleman was perturbed, but this time when he drove and turned his back to the rim, he was so distracted counting his dribbles that Cassidy slipped around him and snaked the ball away. He quickly returned the ball back to the top of the key, then turned before Randleman could get organized and shot the same jump shot from the foul line. Again it went in.

  “My ad,” he said.

  Randleman tried a jump shot of his own, but it was way off, slamming against the backboard and coming right to Cassidy, who had the bigger boy boxed out.

  Cassidy took it out, turned, saw that Randleman was right on top of him, gave a little pause that brought Randleman up on his toes to stop the jump shot, then blew by him in a flash and put up the easy layup.

  “The crowd goes wild!” Cassidy raised his arms in triumph. Trapper was clapping. Even Randleman was grinning. This happened once in a blue moon, the skinny kid prevailing like that with a little luck. He was entitled to his fun.

  Randleman had to take off, so he secured the ball in a net bag on his rear luggage rack and pedaled off toward the mainland. Cassidy sat next to Trapper Nelson, still breathing hard, shiny with sweat.

  “Pretty impressive, boy-o,” said Trapper. “Teaching some tricks to the big boy.”

  “Nah, he usually kills me,” said Cassidy.

  “Still, that was pretty good shooting from where I sit.”

  “I’ve been back practicing most afternoons. Since . . . well, since I don’t have . . .”

  “I know. I’ve been thinking about that. I probably shouldn’t have stuck my big nose into the middle of it.”

  “No, Trap, don’t say that. It was worth a try. You were right about everything. I got completely over those pains in just a few days. I even thought about going to talk to Bickerstaff about it, but . . .”

  “Why don’t you? Might be worth a try. Heck, he might even admit he made a mistake.”

  “I don’t think so. I saw him in the hallway one day and he just looked at me and shook his head,” Cassidy said.

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “So, want to hear my plan?”

  “Plan?” said Cassidy.

  Trapper pulled a sheath of notebook papers from his back pocket. It was his notes from talking to Archie San Romani. He smoothed them out on his knee, where Cassidy stared at the strange notations:

  1 m warm-up

  10 x 100 striders

  1 x 110 goal pace

  1 x 220

  1 x 330

  1 x 440

  1 x 880

  jog 440

  repeat

  warm-down 880 jog

  “What’s all this?” Cassidy tapped the paper.

  “It’s called a ladder. He gave me some others called ‘stepladders.’ Archie said it’s a good way to do intervals without getting hurt. You sort of ease into them. It builds slowly, and then either backs down or repeats. He swears by them.”

  “Yeah, but, Trap, I’m not on the track team anymore,” Cassidy said. Just saying it made him sad.

  “I know that, Youngblood. That’s what the plan is about. ‘You have to have a plan, even if it’s wrong.’ Isn’t that what you say?” He cracked up.

  Cassidy hadn’t heard Trapper’s laugh in a while. It startled him.

  * * *

  The county track meet was held three weeks later on a balmy Friday evening at Twin Lakes High School in West Palm Beach. Cassidy sat in the stands with Stiggs, Randleman, and Trapper Nelson, watching the officials setting up the high hurdles for the first event.

  “Gotta go warm up,” said Stiggs. He was a co-favorite in the high jump.

  “Go get ’em, Stiggs!” said Cassidy.

  “Yeah, you too, man. Give ’em hell out there.” And Stiggs was gone. Cassidy looked at Trapper Nelson.

  “Are you sure they’re h
aving this?” he asked.

  “Positive. What do you think we’ve been doing all this for? Now, right before they run the high hurdles off, I want you to start warming up. Archie said it’s almost impossible to warm up too hard for a distance event, so don’t leave anything out. How do you feel?”

  “Fine, I told you. Have you seen Bickerstaff?”

  “No, but don’t worry about him. He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Okay.”

  Sure enough, just as Cassidy was starting to jog around the outside of the track before the first heat of the hurdles, the announcer came on the PA system:

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome again to the Tri-County Junior High School track meet, featuring the best track athletes from every school in the three-county area. We’re also pleased tonight to welcome athletes in several open events, including the 100-yard dash, the 180-yard low hurdles, the pole vault, and the 880-yard run. These athletes will compete immediately after each regular championship event. These are athletes who are out of school or otherwise ineligible to compete officially, but they’re here tonight to do their absolute best. So let’s hear a big hand for all of our all-comers athletes tonight!”

  Cassidy heard a few whistles and catcalls. No one cared a fig about a handful of rejects and losers out for a few moments of secondhand glory. He left the track and jogged a full mile around the outside of the stadium, keeping an eye out for Coach Bickerstaff, whom he really didn’t want to run into.

  He took off his dowdy gray cotton sweat suit after the first mile, feeling that he was more than warmed up already. He could hear them lining up the sprinters for the hundred-yard dash inside the stadium as he started the first of the many striders he had agreed to do.

  It was a strange feeling, warming up all alone out here in the dark, no teammates around, no lights or crowd to distract him. Upon reflection, he realized that he preferred being by himself. I’ve done most of the running alone, he thought, so why not get ready to race alone?