Eleven Miles to Oshkosh

by Jim Guhl

  I was glad when Pastor Olson stepped up to the pulpit in hopes that he would give us something to think about besides the blue-hat lady. According to the bulletin, the sermon title today was “Finishing the Race.”

  Like always, the sermon was partly about God’s expectations for us. The pastor told us that we each needed to set ourselves on a path according to the plans that God had for us. But it wasn’t enough just to get started down the path. We needed to find the courage and determination to finish what we started.

  That’s when Pastor Olson switched over to another one of his stories. I squirmed to fit my butt to the hard, wooden pew and leaned forward.

  “How many of you have heard of John Stephen Akhwari?” he asked.

  Nobody raised a hand.

  “How many of you watched the finish of the marathon race at the summer Olympics in Mexico City?”

  Lots of hands went up.

  “John Stephen Akhwari finished fifty-seventh in the Olympic marathon,” he said. The pastor paused and looked around. “John Stephen Akhwari is my hero. Do you want to know why?”

  I nodded my head and would have buckled my seatbelt if the church pew had one. The pastor continued with a story about a poor black man who had come to represent Tanzania in the 1968 Olympics. He came with high hopes, knowing that he had a real chance to medal in the twenty-six-mile marathon run. For most of the race he ran with the lead pack. Then disaster struck when his legs got tangled with another runner and he fell. He fell hard—very hard, to the pavement, injuring his knee and shoulder when he hit. The knee injury was bad, possibly even dislocated according to the medical staff, and they told him to drop out. Instead, he asked them to wrap the injured leg in bandages, after which Mr. Akhwari hobbled back to the road and continued along the race route.

  In the stadium, over an hour had passed since the winner and every other finisher had crossed the line. The sun had set and only a few people remained in the seats, unaware that one more runner still trudged in the darkness. When Mr. Akhwari emerged from the stadium tunnel, a gasp, and then a cheer, went up from the few people remaining. The man’s injured knee had stiffened such that it could barely bend. Slowly he limped the final lap, agony seared on his face. He collapsed at the finish line and was immediately transported to the hospital.

  As Pastor Olson talked, the memory returned to me. Holy smoke! He really was the hero of the race. I had seen it on TV myself.

  Pastor Olson looked around at all of our faces in the pews. He spotted me and smiled. “Do you know what John Stephen Akhwari said to a news reporter when asked why he didn’t quit?”

  I shook my head.

  “He said, My country did not send me five thousand miles to start a race. They sent me five thousand miles to finish one.”

  Wow!

  Mom made fish sticks and peas for Sunday dinner, and for the first time in a long time, we all sat down at the kitchen table together. I made a pond of ketchup on my plate and cut up my sticks into little pieces for dipping.

  “What are you going to do now that your days of fame are over?” asked Sally.

  I noticed that Mom had paused from buttering her peas to listen to my answer.

  “School. Fishing. Stuff like that,” I said.

  Mom nodded. “Good! You’re done with signs and protest marches. No more news reporters and TV cameras. No more interviews for the newspapers. Are we clear on that?”

  I nodded.

  “Del? . . . Are we clear?”

  “Yes.”

  In my mind, after Pastor Olson’s sermon, I wasn’t clear at all. The killer was still out there. Did everybody just expect me to give up? The answer, of course, was yes.

  Sally got out the box of Neapolitan ice cream from the freezer and three clean plates.

  “I’ll just use my same plate,” I said. When you were the guy washing every dish in the universe, a little ketchup in your ice cream was a small price to pay to reduce the dish count.

  Sally put one of the plates back and, with a butcher knife, went about the business of slicing three big slabs off the pink, brown, and white brick. Each slab of ice cream looked like a French flag. I started with the strawberry stripe and moved north toward chocolate.

  After doing the dishes I went into the basement and gazed up at the pull-up bar that I had bolted to a wooden beam. Believe it or not, I hammered out thirty-two good ones before my arms turned to jelly. It had to be some sort of record. I dusted off the mirror on a shelf full of forgotten knickknacks and looked at the size of my bicep muscles. My arms weren’t scrawny any more. I ran upstairs to the bathroom and stood on the scale. It showed me at ninety pounds. Holy schmoly! I was turning into a brute!

  Freshly loaded with confidence, I polished off the remaining eighteen pull-ups and returned to my bedroom to practice my lines from Romeo and Juliet. The auditions were scheduled for Tuesday. My last practice with Rhonda would be sixth period on Monday in the chemistry lab.

  I looked forward to practicing again with Rhonda. Ever since I saw her at the funeral, I had been thinking about her differently. Gosh, she was like a different person with her hair fixed up and wearing that black dress along with the women’s shoes with spiky heels. She was going to be a real Juliet all right. And if I could scrape together a halfway decent Romeo, well, we might make a chemical reaction after all. Maybe Del Finwick and Rhonda Glass were going to be the baking soda and vinegar of the Shattuck High theater department.

  43

  The Snow-Ball Dance came and went. Would you believe me if I said that I didn’t want to go to it in the first place? I didn’t think so. You know the truth. That’s right—while Mark was having a great time, dancing slow and looking into the prettiest face at Shattuck High, I was listening to Wolfman Jack on the radio while washing and waxing the kitchen floor. The worst part came just before midnight when I knew Mark was probably on the receiving end of the world’s most perfect kiss—the one that was really meant for me. Jeez!

  I sucked it up and moved on, and yes, I’ve had some practice at that. Mom said I needed to quit thinking about murderers and bullets. I figured out that the only way to give my brain a break from that obsession was to keep doing everything else. Here is how I was filling up my days.

  Ice fishing

  Hoot Owls

  Pull-ups

  Dishwashing, floor scrubbing, bathroom cleaning

  School and homework

  Romeo and Juliet practice

  Rocket games

  Helping Grandpa Asa

  Confirmation class and church

  Yep, everybody around me could see that I had moved back to my regular life of activities that a fifteen-year-old kid was supposed to do. In the eyes of most, I had become a good citizen again.

  But had I really washed my hands of the whole thing? Had I really caved in and just given up? Well, let me put it this way. My dad was still dead. His killer was still out there. The marathon runner in Pastor Olson’s sermon was still limping toward the finish line in my brain. Jiminy!—what would you do?

  Steve showed signs of life again for the first time in three months. It’s not that I had lost track of him completely, but after the volcano prank, Mark and I had pretty much written him off. Steve’s parents had branded us as untouchables, so we were both surprised when he called us at our homes and asked us to meet with him before homeroom in the Science Resource Center. He wanted to show us the plans for his latest invention.

  I looked around for spies as Steve opened his spiral notebook to the first page of his just-hatched scheme. The pencil sketch showed a kite flying over a baseball field with three stick figures holding the string.

  “It’s a kite,” I said.

  Mark cranked up the sarcasm. “Congratulations, Steve! You invented the kite. Oh, I almost forgot, it’s been invented already.”

  “Shut up, butthead.” Steve was no fan of Mark’s wise cracks.

  I waited as Steve turned to the next page to an engineering drawing. It showed the kite in exp
licit detail and directions on how to build it.

  “What do you think now?” he asked.

  Mark and I looked at each other. We were still clueless. The drawing showed a pair of crossed sticks supporting a diamond-shaped sheet of plastic and a tail hanging down. It was a kite like any other kite as near as we could tell. We both looked at Steve like he was going loony.

  “Don’t just look at the picture,” he said. “Look at the scale—the size.”

  We looked again and our eyes finally focused on the numbers.

  “Wait a minute,” said Mark. “This thing is huge!”

  I took a second to study the dimensions. The measurements on the paper showed the kite to be sixteen feet long and ten feet wide, almost twice the size of my garage door. The struts were made of two-by-two lumber and the tail was forty feet long and constructed of rope and empty beer cans, according to the materials list.

  Steve turned the page. The next drawing showed the words that would be printed on the giant kite in huge, block letters.

  BLUE JAY

  SLAYER

  Mark grinned like a drunken cowboy. “Another road trip?”

  Steve glanced at Mrs. Schwartz and turned to the next page. I leaned in, trying to figure out what was different. Then I saw it. Steve’s kite drawing included a box with a release latch and a trapdoor. A second string ran parallel to the main kite-flying string. With a pull of that second string, whatever was in the box would tumble out and fall to the ground.

  Mark’s face lit up. “We’re going to bomb the Menasha Blue Jays?”

  “At their baseball game,” Steve said.

  My head snapped to vertical. “Baggert’s gonna freak!”

  “Damn right!” said Mark. “He deserves it.”

  “What if we get caught again?” I asked. “All they have to do is follow the twine to where we’re holding the kite.”

  Mark looked at Steve. “Well?”

  Steve’s face reflected confidence. He turned the page. Mark and I studied the lines, which showed the twine passing through a maze of left and right turns on the ground, guided by hoops that were held in place by tent stakes going into the ground.

  “Once we get the kite in the air we maneuver ourselves behind houses and bushes. Then we set up the stakes and hoops and string the twine in a maze ending at our getaway car. The plan is to let out more and more string until the Blue Jay Slayer drifts into position over the baseball field. When it flies over a good spot, hopefully over the Menasha bench, we pull the second string opening the bomb doors.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Then we scram,” said Mark. He grinned like Elvis Presley.

  Steve flicked his eyebrows. “Can we use your grandpa’s truck again?”

  “No,” I said.

  Mark punched me in the shoulder. “Come on, Delmar, don’t be a wuss.”

  I swallowed hard and raked my hair with my fingers. “Okay, I’ll talk to him.”

  The bell rang. We were all late for homeroom.

  Ever since we returned from Christmas break, Romeo and Juliet audition posters had been taped up all over the school. The day finally came. Auditions would be held after classes in the auditorium. For the first time in a while, I was having second thoughts, feeling a little self-conscious about tryouts. I waited until exactly four o’clock before walking into the auditorium. When I saw the people, my brain nearly exploded.

  Including me, fifteen kids had shown up to audition. That seemed about right. The shocker was the ratio—fourteen of them were girls.

  They giggled and gabbed in two separate groups. One circle was made up of the thespians. They were the kids obsessed with a single-minded desire to become famous actresses in places like Hollywood or New York City. You could pick them out right away because everything they said came with a hair flick and a hand gesture. They also shared the common goal of marrying David Cassidy. I had seen the pictures taped inside their lockers.

  The other circle of girls were from the popular crowd—the cheerleader types, all good-looking, and all dating big, strong, athletic guys.

  My entrance into the room triggered a pause. At first, every girl glanced hopefully. This was followed by recognition and sour-faced disappointment. I’m not sure who they were hoping for, but it sure as heck wasn’t Minnow Finwick in his green flannel shirt and Eaglewing steel-toed boots.

  For a second I thought about making a full retreat, like the British troops at Dunkirk. Then I heard a familiar voice.

  “Hey there, Del.”

  Sitting in the middle of the back row of the auditorium was Rhonda. She wore the same nifty outfit as she had worn at the funeral. Her hair was fixed up nice again too, with a shiny silver barrette holding everything in place. She smiled for me and her face practically sparkled.

  “Hi, Rhonda.” I snuck into the seat next to her.

  The door behind us swung open and the two circles of girls on the stage once again took a pause of anticipation. This time the reaction was different—all smiles, hair flicking, and head-tilting adoration.

  I turned to look. “Great,” I whispered to Rhonda. “It’s Heckmeyer.”

  Norwood Heckmeyer stood six feet tall, with wavy black hair and dark-brown eyes. He had a dimpled chin like Kirk Douglas and a crooked smile like Elvis.

  I looked at Rhonda. “I’m doomed.”

  She gave me a backhanded whack in the chest that just about knocked the wind out of me. “Shut up, Del. He’s all fluff. You’ll kick his ass.”

  “Yeah? Look at those girls.” The swoonfest continued from the stage. Marjorie Bickersly took a pose with arms extended as if anticipating a hug form Shattuck High’s best-loved hunk. Kelly Swoop fluttered her eyelids.

  “They all have one problem,” Rhonda said, smirking.

  “What’s that?”

  “They don’t get a vote.”

  Mr. Schirmer and Mrs. Borger walked in from the wings. Schirmer clapped his hands and directed everyone to take seats in the first three rows. I had seen him during study hall. The guy always reminded me of a turtle with his bald head and jutting upper lip. He wore a light-blue shirt with a dark vest and stood totem-pole straight.

  “Quickly, people!”

  Rhonda and I moved down to the third row. When everyone was settled, he explained how the auditions would take place. As expected, we would each speak and act out several lines from Romeo and Juliet that we had been given in advance. What I didn’t realize until then was that Norwood Heckmeyer and I would each be auditioning seven different times because, apparently, there just weren’t enough boys willing to try out for a role in which the actor might have to put on face powder and eyeliner.

  The whole thing took just over an hour, and guess what. Not a single one of those thespians or populars possessed one-tenth the talent of Rhonda Glass. I knew it, they knew it, Mrs. Borger knew it, and I was pretty sure that Mr. Schirmer knew it too. When Rhonda spoke, something more than words came out of her. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but she seemed almost hypnotized into actually thinking that she was Juliet. She could have been standing in her pajamas up there, and it wouldn’t have fazed her. She gave her audition with Norwood instead of me but, compared to Rhonda, he came across all herky-jerky and fake.

  Rhonda said I did fine, but I wasn’t so sure. Without Rhonda across from me, I felt sort of awkward. The usual rhythm wasn’t there. It was a weird feeling saying words like “this bud of love by summers ripening breath” while looking into some of those heavily made-up faces. Most of the girls looked right past me, like I was a cardboard Romeo propped up with a stick. Marjorie Bickersly was the exception. She looked down on me like she was being forced to talk sweet to a worm.

  I persevered and got through it. Mr. Schirmer thanked everyone for coming and told us that the resulting decisions would be posted outside the auditorium door first thing in the morning.

  “See you tomorrow, Rhonda,” I said as I shouldered my backpack.

  “Bye,” she said. “
You were good today.”

  “I was okay,” I said. “But you—you were slammin!”

  It was true. Rhonda had a gift for acting—pure and simple. I wondered where her life would take her and hoped that the role of Juliet would be just the start. What could stop her, after all? Then I thought about that kooky father of hers and answered my own question.

  44

  I went to school early to check the audition results before homeroom. Here is what I found posted on the auditorium door.

  Romeo: Delmar Finwick

  Juliet: Marjorie Bickersly

  Nothing could have been more backward. I couldn’t let it stand. I made a dash to Mrs. Borger’s classroom, took a sharp left turn, and came to an abrupt stop at her desk. Right away, I saw the sadness in her eyes.

  “You didn’t pick Rhonda,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Finwick. But fourteen girls tried out and we could only choose one.”

  “But you were there. You saw her. None of the others were even close.”

  “It wasn’t to be,” she said. “Mr. Schirmer had different ideas.”

  Mrs. Borger placed both hands in her lap and looked at the empty desktop, then back at me. “Theater is a very subjective business, Mr. Finwick, and Rhonda is not the only disappointed student this morning. Many factors were considered in the selection. Mr. Schirmer and I talked at length, but he had the final say. It only makes sense. He’s the head of our drama department and the director of the play.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “His room is C254.”

  I checked my watch. Still ten minutes until the homeroom bell. I charged back into the halls and slithered through the crush of bodies. (Sometimes it helps to be the size of a minnow.) Out of breath, I blasted into C254.

  Mr. Schirmer clasped his hands together and smiled brightly when he saw me. He projected his voice across the room. “Thou art Romeo, Mr. Finwick!”