Life at These Speeds

First Chapter

"Hold," said Jarhead. He reached back from the driver's seat as Bobby came near. Bobby was exiting the van. Jarhead grabbed Bobby's shoulder and said, "You're doing high jump."

Bobby hated high jump.

"Okay," said Bobby.

Jarhead was coach. We called him Jarhead because his head with its crew cut mimicked a mayonnaise jar's shape. We didn't know "jarhead" was a nickname for soldiers. We were thirteen or fourteen years old, at an eighth-grade track meet in Bryceville. Tonight was the night I was going to win the 800-meter run. I was going to win because Jamie Torffelson wasn't there. Jamie Torffelson was a redshirt from Portertown who had run a 2:04 -- two seconds off the Missouri junior-high record.

I was the real high jumper, better than Bobby Sickle. But I also ran fast, and tonight Jarhead needed me in the 1600-meter relay, the 3200-meter relay, and, of course, the open 800. I could only enter three events, so I couldn't do high jump.

That was fine. I hated high jump. But then, I hated the 1600-meter relay, the 3200-meter relay, and the open 800, too. Basically, I hated running and jumping. But I ran fast and jumped high.

"You're headed to state finals next year," Jarhead had told me.

Next year I would be a freshman.

"That doesn't bother me," I said.

Jarhead was a big fucker. Something like six feet eight. He was blond haired, but his eyebrows were brown. Those were scary, his eyebrows. When he told Bobby Sickle that he was doing high jump, Jarhead nudged his brown eyebrows together in a way that said, "You're going to do high jump." It was intimidating, and I felt for Bobby. I was sitting near the back of the van with Ellie Butterbit and Ellie Butterbit's boobs. Trolley Catchell was back there, too, sitting in the very last seat sleeping or jacking off. He was fat. He threw shot put.

Jarhead told Bobby he was doing high jump. Bobby tromped off the van and walked past my window, cussing. I admired his vocabulary. He and I were mild rivals only because we were too much alike to be friends anymore. But I had always known that somewhere, somehow, Bobby Sickle was just wrong, just a notch or three below me. This year I had evidence: I was faster, jumped higher, and had Ellie Butterbit.

"Would you suck Bobby's dick?" I asked Ellie.

She threw her sweatshirt at me. I picked it up and smelled it. She laughed. Jarhead stepped out of the van and the van rocked. Ellie was still laughing at me.

"He's one big guy," Trolley said from his seat. He was lying down, so we couldn't see his face.

"That's darn tootin', Trolley," I replied.

It's amazing that Trolley Catchell never kicked my ass. I made fun of him every day. But then, I was popular, funny, and friendly when appropriate. I was an egomaniac, but I didn't know it.

Being an egomaniac didn't bother me. After all, who else had fooled around with Ellie Butterbit?

We were lying on blankets on the slope above the track, talking about how cold it was, saying things like, "It's really cold," and "Shit, I'm going to freeze." It was me and Ell1ie and Greg French and Heather Garnet and Will Wynsom and Gina Daley and Hoover Garfield.

Me and Ellie were keeping warm enough under a blanket, but I went along with the conversation.

"Frickin'-ass cold," I said.

Ellie thought that was funny.

Jarhead walked up like a blond-and-blue totem pole. He held clipboards.

"Jamie Torffelson is here," he said. "In the 800 with you."

My best time in the 800 was 2:10, but I had beaten Jamie last week at Hellas with a 2:13. That was the only time I'd beaten him. Jarhead wanted me to win tonight. He wanted me to smash Jamie Torffelson into the cinders. Jarhead hated Portertown.

Jarhead said, "I want you to win tonight. I want you to smash Jamie Torffelson into the cinders. I hate Portertown."

"I'll win," I said. "I'll break 2:10."

"What size spikes you got?" asked Jarhead. He crouched down next to me. I had to reach an arm out from under the blanket to check my shoes.

"Quarter-inch."

"Well," said Jarhead, "you'll do what you do."

"It will be done did."

Our uniforms were blue. We yawned. Daylight saving time had not yet arrived this year, so the sun had set as our team van pulled into Bryceville, and our meet was held beneath the darkness. High schoolers' cars wheeled through the white-gravel lot beside the track. And why was there a muddy smell, hanging in the chill?

I ran the 3200-meter relay as a warm-up, testing my tendons. We placed third after Porterville and Bryceville. I was the anchor, the fastest, and Bobby Sickle ran well, too, but Greg French and Jason Blick were slow, so our relay rarely won. Other than the 1600-meter relay, this was the only relay race our team entered. After the race, I walked through the finish area. Georgia Teeter sneered at me. I blew her a kiss. I walked into the infield, where Jarhead stood alone like an abandoned chess piece. Jarhead had kept our splits in the relay. They were: Jason Blick, 2:32; Greg French, 2:31; Bobby Sickle, 2:19; and me, 2:17. I hadn't been pushing.

Jamie Torffelson ran third-leg with a 2:07.

"He'll wear himself out," said Jarhead.

Then Jarhead told me he was pulling me out of the 1600-meter relay. He put Bobby Sickle in. "We're keeping you fresh," Coach told me. He and I were still standing far from anyone, in the middle of the infield. The field lights shone from the dents in his forehead.

"How's the track?" he asked.

"Loose. Dry."

"Oh yeah," he said, as if loose, dry tracks were the plague of his years.

Bryceville had the standard shit-school cinder track. They let us wear quarter-inch spikes. Bryceville was bigger than our school, Carton. My entire class contained sixteen kids. Fourteen of us had joined the track team.

Jarhead pulled a white bag from his jacket. "Here," he said. "Halfinch. No one will notice."

So I sat in the infield and screwed the half-inch spikes into my Nikes while Jarhead stood above me. Then he sent me to the high jump pit to tell Bobby he was running the 1600 relay so I could rest up.

"I hate that relay," said Bobby. He was being real royal about getting all the shit that Jarhead didn't want to put me in. Bobby was jumping well. I watched him clear 5'4".

"Good jump. Nice approach," I told him, knowing nothing is worse than middling compliments from someone who is better than you.

Jason Blick came up. "Hey," he said to me, "your parents are here."

They were. In the top corner of the bleachers, sitting on their little butt-saver cushions.

I went to my parents.

"Hey," I said.

"Well, how's it going?" asked Mom. She pulled open a cooler.

"Okay," I said.

"You already run the 1600 relay?" asked Dad. He was looking portly.

"No. Coach took me out of it to rest up for the 800."

"Ah. Good," said Dad.

"We're keeping me fresh," I explained.

Mom handed Dad a braunschweiger-and-cheddar sandwich. She poured him coffee from a thermos and offered me some.

"No," I said. "Chemicals, you know. Not for an athlete."

Lying on the blankets again.

"Ellie," I said, "go talk to my parents."

They thought Ellie was so nice and pleasant. Ellie was good with adults. She was smart.

"Fine," she said, and stood up. I heard runners crashing through hurdles. Behind Ellie's blue sweatpants the track's rust swath circled the pool-table infield. Beyond that was night, come comfortably up to the chain-link fence.

I looked at Ellie's face. She was smiling at me. One time we had met in the woods between our houses, and she had taken me to the cliffs above the floodplain and shown me how the view encompassed the hills of three counties. Often I had daydreamed of following her on more treks through the woods. We could pack snacks to eat. By road, our houses were four miles apart; but through the woods only one mile separated us.

"When I come back," she said, "you will have decided between Boston and Montana."

See, we were planning where to live. We were planning our adult persons.

"Okay," I said and clicked my teeth. I watched Ellie's smile turn and watched her walk with her hands swinging selflessly. Steadily she moved, crossing the track, the infield, and the track again. She rose into the bleachers. I pictured her walking right off the back of the bleachers, but she didn't. As she approached my parents, she opened her arms wide, like Jesus might have done at the end of his "Don't worry" parables. What was she saying to them?

I wanted her to come walking back.

As far as Boston and Montana were concerned, I liked Boston, but knew Ellie wanted Montana. My answer was both.

While Ellie visited the bleachers, me and Will Wynsom went behind the restrooms and smoked. Jamie Torffelson walked by with two buddies. I don't know what they were doing just walking behind the restrooms.

"How does it feel to be a loser?" asked Jamie.

I thought he was talking to Will, who was a genuine loser. But then he stopped in front of me.

"It doesn't bother me," I said, exhaling. I should have said, "How does it feel to have a woman's name?" but I didn't particularly want to be beaten into pulp.

The two things the backs of restrooms were made for: smoking and beating people into pulp.

Ellie came back as Will and me walked from behind the restrooms. "You were smoking," she said. "Mm, let me kiss you!"

I pushed her off. "Kiss Will," I said.

Will smiled.

Ellie screamed and slapped my shoulder. I grabbed her ass. It was a lovely thing to do.

"How are my fossils?" I asked.

"Your parents are nice," she said. "You should be nice to your parents.

Since my parents were there, that meant no van ride home. That meant no neck sucking with Ellie.

Ellie pulled her sweatshirt hood up. She began reading a book by someone dead.

Trolley Catchell loped up to our blanket camp and sat on the grass. "How'd the throwing go, Trolley?" I said.

"Third," said Trolley.

Bobby Sickle approached and sat with Gina Daley.

I was the official spokesman.

"How'd the jumping go?"

"Third," said Bobby. He picked dirt from his spikes and started unscrewing them. He was done for the night. He'd run a 1:15 in the 1600-meter relay--a poor time by any measure. Hell, Ellie could run a 1:06. I could do 59.

"My parents here?" Bobby asked, looking to the bleachers. We all looked. We were trained to spot parents. At any public event, it gave us great glee to tell another kid that his parents were present. Such news was a subtle slap, and we loved violence.

Greg French said, "They look like war ships."

I wondered whose parents he was insulting. I thought it was the kind of insult I should have gotten to first, but then I realized he was simply offering us a painfully uncreative description of the bleachers.

I saw my parents Mobbed together in their parkas. They waved. I saluted them.

"Hippy, dippy, do," someone said.

"My parents were supposed to be here," said Bobby. He actually liked his parents to come to the meets. He actually liked his parents. Publicly. "I have to ride the fucking van," he said.

"Fuckity fuck fuck," I said. I was getting tired of waiting to win the 800. "Fellows, all this third-place taking has earned us a smoke." I looked around at Ellie and Bobby and Trolley and Jason and Greg and Heather and Will and Hoover. They were gazing at their laps.

I jumped up. I snapped at Will. He was the one with the cigarettes. He rose.

"Trolley," I said, "you deserve a break. Come on."

"No," he mumbled.

Bobby stood.

"Coming?" I asked.

"No doubt. I got something."

Behind the restrooms we lit and dragged.

"Fricking-ass cold," said Will, but no one laughed.

"Guys," said Bobby. "Look at this." He dug into his jacket, then froze.

Jamie Torffelson and two guys had come around the corner. One of the guys had a mustache. We didn't say anything, and they didn't say anything, but they came right up to us where we stood against the white cinder-block wall.

A toilet flushed inside. It made me bold.

I said, "I'm going to break 2:10. That would leave you in second, I guess. Or third."

Jamie's face fluttered. At my side, I felt Will cringe--he hated a fight.

Jamie shuffled a bit and looked over his shoulder. Then he pointed to Bobby. "You hold your cigarette like a fag," he said.

This was true, I admit. It was true.

"What?" said Bobby, and he dropped his cigarette. "You want to say that again?"

I kept smoking, slowly. Tact, I felt, was the key. "Come on guys," I said. "I have a race to win." I snuffed my cigarette with my heel.

"No way," said Bobby. "I want this prick to repeat what he just said so I can smash his face in."

"I'd love to, buttfucker."

I put my forearm across Bobby's stomach. "Come on," I said.

"No fucking way."

"Give me a cigarette, boys," said someone. I looked. It was Trolley Catchell, walking like a barrel, looking like a fortress, coming around the corner. "Give me a cigarette."

Will gave him a cigarette. Will was smiling.

"You all want a smoke?" Trolley asked Jamie's crew.

"No," said Jamie, and he left with his friends.

I scratched my eyebrow, put one foot up on the wall behind me.

"I saw them come back here," said Trolley, pill-rolling his Camel. He dropped it without even lighting it. He stepped on it. "Come on, they did first call for the 800."

I waited for Bobby to thank me. When he didn't, I followed Trolley.

The hair on my legs rose. The night was fifty degrees. I rubbed my calf muscles.

"Let me do that," said Ellie. "For good luck."

I let her do it.

Jarhead came up and smiled and said, "This is going to be good. This is going to be just fine."

"Good," I said. "Fine.

"Keep moving before the start," he said. "Keep jogging in place. This cold will lock your muscles if you don't."

"It's under control, Mister Coach Master, sir."

"Good," he said.

"Fine," said I.

Then I had to piss. I ran into the restroom. I ran out, jiggling my arms to loosen them, and Bobby came up. We jogged toward the starting line along the back part of the track. It was silent but for our footfalls.

"Let me run it," said Bobby.

"No way. I'm going to break 2:10."

"Shit," he said. He held something out to me. It was two joints. We had smoked pot a couple times, but didn't know who to get it from regularly.

"Where the hell . . . ?" I asked.

"Some kid over by concessions."

I smelled the joints. They were real.

"You can have them," said Bobby, "if you let me run this race. I want to blow Jamie Torffelson's ass away. I can do it."

"Bobby. . ." I said, but then I thought about next week's dance, and how it would be great to smoke with Ellie, and so on. I didn't care what Jarhead thought. I would quit the team if he wanted. I hated running and jumping anyway.

"Okay," I said.

"Give me your spikes," he said. "I already took mine out."

We sat on the track, traded shoes, then continued toward the starting line, wordless.

"Carton, Kevin Schuler," said the starter, "lane six."

Bobby stood in lane six. I looked around for Jarhead. He was on the far side near the finish line. The track wasn't standard size, so 800 meters wasn't two laps, but one and two-thirds.

"Hold your dicks, boys," said the starter. "I need caps."

A bouncing girl ran across the infield for more starter caps. Bobby motioned to me. I looked across the infield. Jarhead was striding right at us pointing at Bobby. Jarhead yelled. The bouncing girl ran past Jarhead and handed the caps to the starter; he threw one in, stood back, signaled the timers, said "Mark! Set!" and shot.

Then a wild thing happened: Bobby pulled out front, and when the lanes fell in he was in second, just off Jamie Torffelson's shoulder.

Jarhead stopped beside me, his head panning like a naval cannon, his lips loose and open just wide enough to hold a budding rose. As it quickly became apparent that Bobby was going to do fine, he said, "That's you out there."

"That's me," I agreed.

"You're doing good," he said.

"I'm doing well," I corrected.

Bobby stayed with Jamie around the first lap. He passed me and Jarhead. I checked the split on Jarhead's stopwatch. It was too fast for Bobby to hold. Jarhead didn't even check the split. "Kick it in!" he screamed. I followed Jarhead across the infield toward the finish line. I watched Bobby and Jamie. Bobby hugged Jamie's shoulder, moving up. I was almost impressed. But Jamie held him out on the curve. Then, as they hit the stretch, they were both tripping, windmilling, kicking up arcs of cinders. Jamie crashed. Bobby went on. He looked behind him as he sprinted in at 2:01.

Jarhead threw his clipboards into the bleachers and shook Bobby. "God damn yes!" he screamed. "God damn yes!"

When Jarhead released Bobby I expected him to crumple like canvas to the track, but he stood straight. He put his hands on his head, laced his fingers together. I cut toward him through the pack of coaches and timers. He was breathing through his nose. I saw he had more underarm hair than I did.

"Nice scuffle," I said.

Someone called for the official finish time. A timer referred to the starting roster: "Carton's runner . . . Kevin Schuler." It was then I realized that I, Kevin Schuler, now held the state record for the 800-meter run. It was my first record, and my easiest.

An official pulled Jarhead away. "Bring the runner," said the official, pointing to Bobby. I followed. Suddenly, Ellie had her arm around me. I didn't care about anything right then except her. I wanted to tell her about the joints in my pocket.

"Your runner spiked Jamie," said Porterville's wiry coach.

Jarhead shook his head. He said, "Your boy tripped him as he tried to pass."

The starter and three officials and several coaches and runners huddled around. Sitting on the ground, thirty meters up the track, Jamie Torffelson had wide gashes above his right ankle. Cinders and blood colored his knees and palms. As we watched, two EMTs wearing latex gloves lifted him and led him away. "Don't let them trick you!" he called.

"I saw it," said Jarhead. "Your runner tripped my runner. It was clear if you were watching."

"It's true," said someone. All heads turned. It was my father, hands resting on his yellow binoculars. "I saw the Porterville runner trip Carton's boy," he said.

There was silence.

"Now wait," said the starter. He was the starter at all the local meets. "Isn't this kid"--he pointed to me=-"Kevin Schuler?"

"Uh, no," said Jarhead. He put his hand on Bobby's shoulder. "This is."

No heads moved. The starter crossed his arms. Bobby bent over.

I stepped out, pulling Ellie with me. She was smiling at my side. "Look," I said, "his shoes."

We all looked. Even Bobby looked. His shoes, indeed. There were stripes of blood on the left toe. And below, an inch from the view of the world, were the illegal, halfinch spikes that had cut Jamie Torffelson. I knew they would not be seen, but I knew they were there. I new a thing the world didn't.

But what the world saw was notable: Across the heel of the spikes, written in my mother's round script, was K. Schuler.

Ellie squeezed my side.

The starter nodded. "Okay," he said, "all right. The record stands and we can go home. No need to dawdle in this flipping cold if we don't have to."

"Frickin'-ass cold," I said, and a few people laughed. Everyone turned and left. Ellie rubbed her head against my neck.

I rode with my parents in the beige sedan. We followed the van to McDonald's, and then passed by. I understood: The Porterville bus was already there. We headed to Hardee's.

"Best eatin' in town," said my dad.

Mom laughed.

I told them that I'd cramped up at the last moment and Jarhead had substituted Bobby. "Cramps, you know. Crazy."

"You can win next week," said Mom.

Dad nodded as we pulled into Hardee's behind the van. I kept worrying that someone would moon us if we followed the van too much.

Dad said, "I know what a raw deal it must feel like to get pulled at the last moment from the race you were going to win. I know that's no fun."

"It didn't bother me," I said.

My parents respectfully made themselves scarce in Hardee's. I showed Ellie the joints and she kissed me. "I'm kissing you," she said, "not the joints."

Our team had placed last in the meet, but all we cared about now was food and warmth and each other. "We're not much as a team," I admitted to Ellie.

"Come on," screamed Jarhead, "we have to get home before midnight. On board!"

In the dark behind the van Ellie kissed me and I sucked on her neck and she pushed me off and looked at my face intently. We stood so close together that to focus on my face she had to cross her eyes.

I said, "I remember when you brought that hen to the egg drop contest. Fourth grade."

"I did," she said, and bit her bottom lip. "Back in those days when I was shy."

"You're still shy," I said. I poked her navel. "We were up on the bleachers," I whispered, "and Miss Palmer was about to throw the hen and I had this sudden anxiety. I worried that the hen might not fly. Might get hurt. And I looked over at you, and I knew you were having the same last-minute worries."

"I thought I was a monster," Ellie said. "I took this hen from her quiet life and was about to throw her off the bleachers . . ."

"But the hen did fine."

Ellie said: "Floated down."

"I'll tell," I said, "what I saw: not that the hen fell, but that the earth rose to hold her."

Jarhead leaned from the van door. "In the vans" he yelled.

Ellie kissed me and turned away. "Call me," she said. It was a thing we did: call each other at two or three in the morning.

I pulled her back.

I said: "Montana."

I sat in the back of the sedan and Dad drove behind the van. "Coach Reese is speeding," he said, chuckling.

"Pass 'em," I said.

Mom slept.

I was still worried about someone mooning us.

"Pass 'em before the bridge," I said.

Dad passed them on a straight stretch, immediately before the bridge. Mom woke up.

"Slow down for the bridge tonight," she said. The bridge was damp. I could hear road-spray in the wheel wells. I looked up the moonlit Osage. It was a wide river. The bridge was high. I wondered if this was the bridge from which you could see all the way up to Bagnel Dam. I lay down, not worrying about mooning anymore, and dozed.

I called Ellie's house that night at two. Her dad answered. "Officer?" he asked.

"There, you see," I whispered to Trolley Catchell as he lay wrapped in gauze and dry sheets a week after the meet, "we're it now. We're the ones. We're the products. We'll go on to show the world."

But despite his cushiony mass -- the weight that buffered him from the bent van seats and the bones of his teammates -- he died too. In the sleepless nights of April and May I sat and counted the things I had lost: my spikes, my team, my girlfriend, my coach. I imagined the thrashing and bubbling of my teammates at the bottom of the Osage River, and the wobble of Trolley Catchell floating to the surface. Soon enough, midsummer, I counted the things I'd gained: two joints, one state record, and Bobby Sickle's training shoes.

What bothered me: When you're at the top, there is nothing above.

"Don't look down," they say to people who fear heights.

Went my new motto: "Don't look up."

I feared depths.

Copyright © 2002 by Jeremy Jackson