Loser (6 page)

In fourth grade Zinkoff is discovered.

He has been there all along, of course, in the neighborhood, in the school, for ten years. He is already known as the kid who laughs too much and, until his operation, the kid who throws up. In fact, in order to get himself discovered, Zinkoff does not do a single thing he hasn't already done a thousand times.

As with all discoveries, it is the eye and not the object that changes.

The discovery of Zinkoff, which will take place gradually over the course of the year, begins on the first day of school. The teacher is Mr. Yalowitz. He is the class's first man teacher. Mr. Yalowitz stands up front holding the stack of roll cards. He looks carefully at each card, as if he is memorizing every name. Then he begins to
shuffle the cards, rearranging their places in the stack. When he finishes he puts the stack down. He lifts off the top card. “Zinkoff,” he says, his eyes never leaving the card. “Donald Zinkoff. Where are you?”

Zinkoff, knowing by now where he belongs, has already gone straight to the boondocks: last seat, far corner. He jumps to attention. “Here, sir!” he calls out.

A smile crosses the teacher's face. He looks up. “Zinkoff…Zinkoff…You want to know something, Zinkoff?”

“Yes, sir!”

“You're the first Z I've ever had in my class. It's not easy being a Z, is it, Zzzzinkoff?”

To tell the truth, Zinkoff has never thought much about it. “I don't know, sir.”

“Well, it's
not
easy, take my word for it. I was a Y. Always the last seat in the class. Always the last one in line for this or that. Doomed by the alphabet. What do you think about that, Zinkoff?”

Zinkoff doesn't know what to think about
that, and he says so. As for the rest of the class, they're thinking,
So this is fourth grade
. They don't know if it's being one more grade up, or if it's this man teacher with his gruff man way of talking, but they're liking it and starting to feel pretty puffy about themselves.

The teacher points. “Zinkoff, how'd you like to experience life in the first row?”

Zinkoff's eyes boggle.

The teacher waves grandly. “Come on up here, boy!”

Zinkoff cries out “Yahoo!” and races up front.

By the time the teacher is done, Zinkoff is in seat number one and Rachel Abano is in the boondocks. Joining Zinkoff on the front row are a W, a V and two T's.

Thanks to teacher Yalowitz, the first person to discover Zinkoff is Zinkoff. Unlike his teachers in grades two and three, this one seems delighted with him. He is forever making pronouncements that give Zinkoff new views of himself. Every morning the first week, for example, as soon as Zinkoff enters the classroom, the teacher
proclaims, “And the Z shall be first!”

One day as he arrives for work at 7:30
A.M
., the teacher spots Zinkoff, alone on the playground, coming down the sliding board. He calls out, “You'll be early to your own funeral, boy!”

Like Zinkoff's previous teachers, Mr. Yalowitz notes his atrocious handwriting. “Master Z,” he says, “whenever you put pencil to paper, unspeakable things happen.” Unlike the other teachers, he says this while laughing, and adds, “Thank God for keyboards!”

Mr. Yalowitz is fussy about his greenboard. Every Friday at precisely two thirty in the afternoon he washes his greenboard. For this purpose he keeps a bucket and sponge in the book-and-supply closet.

On a Friday afternoon in November Mr. Yalowitz is called away from class. By the time he gets back it is well past two thirty. Zinkoff is up front, standing on a chair, reaching for the highest part of the greenboard with the wet sponge.

Mr. Yalowitz gives a chuckle. “Independent little critter, aren't you?”

Zinkoff isn't sure if his teacher's remark is a statement or a question, nor does he quite understand what it means. But he likes the sound of it and decides it must be good, whatever it is. He looks down at the teacher and beams. “Yes sir!”

The teacher makes himself comfortable while his student finishes the job. When Zinkoff returns to his front-row seat, the class applauds. Someone even whistles.

By placing Zinkoff up front, by spotlighting Zinkoff with clever remarks, Mr. Yalowitz unwittingly hastens the others' discovery of him. Something else hastens that discovery too: new eyes.

By the end of third grade, most of the kids' baby teeth were gone. The permanent ones had arrived in their mouths. Around fourth grade something similar happens with eyes. The baby eyes don't drop out, nor are there eye fairies around to leave quarters under pillows, but new eyes do arrive nevertheless. Big-kid eyes replace little-kid eyes.

Little-kid eyes are scoopers. They just scoop
up everything they see and swallow it whole, no questions asked. Big-kid eyes are picky. They notice things that the little-kid eyes never bothered with: the way a teacher blows her nose, the way a kid dresses or pronounces a word.

Twenty-seven classmates now turn their new big-kid eyes to Zinkoff, and suddenly they see things they haven't seen before. Zinkoff has always been clumsy, but now they notice. Zinkoff has always been messy and atrocious and too early and giggly and slow and more often than not wrong in his answers. But now they notice. They notice the stars on his shirts and his atrocious hair and his atrocious way of walking and the atrocious way he volunteers for everything. They notice it all. Even the dime-sized birthmark on his neck below his right earlobe. It has been there for ten years, but now they notice and they stare and say, “What's
that
?”

When the teacher returns graded papers, they peek over Zinkoff's shoulder and see that he never gets an A. When the music teacher comes and demonstrates instruments and passes out
sheets to sign up for lessons and orchestra, they peek again and see that the silly goose signed up for all eight instruments.

Those who practice with him in the school orchestra notice that he is given the “thunder drum,” as the teacher calls it. They notice that every time he pounds the drum he is three beats early or three beats late, and they wince and roll their big-kid eyes at each other and scowl at the teacher as if to say,
Do something
.

And she does something. She gives him a flute, the least damaging instrument. Still he often veers off course, a wanderer among the clarinets and violins. The orchestra kids tell the rest of the kids, the rest of the kids tell their parents, and when the chorus and orchestra recital takes place that spring nearly everyone in the audience keeps an ear peeled for the lost, solitary squeak of Zinkoff's flute.

It is in the first week of June of that year that Zinkoff is most profoundly discovered. It happens during Field Day.

Field Day is many years old at Satterfield Elementary. It began as a day of fun. A day to celebrate spring. An outdoor treat for the students.

And Field Day still is fun for the little kids, the first-, second-and third-graders. But for the fourth-and fifth-graders, the big kids, it is less about fun and more about winning and losing.

The little kids take part in events designed just for them: the potato roll, kick the pillow, basketball boomerang, shadow bonkers. For the big kids it's races. Ten kinds of races, all of them relays. There's the sack race and the run-backwards race and the hop-on-one-foot race and the race-backwards-while-sitting-on-your-rear-end race. The first nine races are like that: goofy, unusual. The last race is just a plain race. To the big, fast kids, it is the only real race.

Each classroom is divided into four teams—eight teams per grade. Each team has a color. Students compete only against those in their own grade.

Mr. Yalowitz is the coach. From home he has brought in strips of dyed material: headbands. Team colors for his classroom are purple, red, green and yellow. Zinkoff is on the purple team.

Before they go out for Field Day Mr. Yalowitz gathers his students around him and says, “I'm rooting for all you guys. Reds, Greens, Purples, Yellows. It's those other fourth-grade measles I don't like.” The kids laugh. He's always telling them that they are better than the other fourth-grade class and that they and their teacher, Mrs. Serota, are measles. “So let's go out there today and beat the pants off 'em!”

They pile hands into the huddle and explode from the classroom and stampede shrieking down the hallway and into the sunshine.

The Purple team has seven members. The best athlete among them is a boy named Gary Hobin. Tall and long of leg, Hobin is not only
the fastest Purple, he is probably the fastest kid in all of fourth grade. He is also a take-charge kind of kid, and when he says, “I'm leading off every race,” none of the Purples disagree. But when Coach Yalowitz hears about it, he says, “Nobody runs every race. You rotate so everybody gets a chance.”

Everybody does get a chance, but Zinkoff gets less of a chance than the others. He “runs” the second leg of the race-backwards-while-sitting-on-your-rear-end race—or, as the kids call it, the hiney hop—and is quickly left behind by the other seven teams. But Yolanda Perry and Gary Hobin are the final two legs, and they bring the Purples back to a rousing victory by a nose, so to speak.

In the hop-on-one-foot race, even an incredible final leg by Hobin is not enough to make up the ground lost by Zinkoff, whose two feet are not always enough to keep him upright. The sight of Zinkoff tilting, tottering, lurching, falling, brings howls of laughter and mock cheers from the sidelines.

Nevertheless, going into the final event the Purples have the highest point total of any
fourth-grade team. To win the championship, all they have to do is not finish last in the big race. Naturally, six of the Purples have no intention of allowing Zinkoff to compete. And naturally, Gary Hobin will run the most important leg, the last leg—the anchor leg—and will propel the Purples to glory.

But the coach has other ideas.

“Zinkoff runs anchor,” he says to the seven gathered Purples.

Everyone turns to stare at Zinkoff, who is doing jumping jacks to keep in shape.

Gary Hobin squawks,
“What?”

“You run third leg,” says the coach. “Give him a nice lead.” And off he goes to counsel the Reds, Greens and Yellows.

Six Purples glare at Zinkoff. Gary Hobin balls his fist and holds it an inch from Zinkoff's face. “I'm gonna give you the biggest lead anybody ever saw. You better not lose it.”

“I won't lose it,” says Zinkoff. “I always save my best till last.”

Which in fact is not true at all, but Zinkoff
imagines it to be, and it sounds like a good thing to say at the time.

The big final race is run across the length of the playground, through the yellow dust and tufted grass. The starters for the eight fourth-grade teams line up at the sliding board and take off at the principal's “Go!” The second runners crouch at the far end, waiting to be tagged on the back by the leadoffs.

At the first exchange the Purples are in second place. By the time the second runner tags Hobin, they are five yards ahead. Hobin blasts out of his crouch and spins dust like a yellow tornado. True to his word, Hobin gives Zinkoff such a lead as has not been seen all day. When he tags Zinkoff, the other runners are only halfway down the track. “Go!” Hobin yells, and Zinkoff goes.

Zinkoff's legs churn up the dust. His arms whirl like his mother's Mixmaster. His face is a pinched, grimacing lemon of effort. And yet—somehow—he goes nowhere. When the other anchors take off he is barely ten yards down the track. “Run! Run!” Hobin screams behind him.
Unable to contain himself, Hobin leaves his place and runs up alongside Zinkoff and screams in his ear, “Run, you dumb turtle! Run!”

Zinkoff runs and runs, the flap of his headband bobbing behind like a tiny purple tail, and he is still running long after the others have crossed the finish line. Zinkoff comes in dead last. The Purples come in last. The Purples lose the championship.

The Purples tear off their headbands. They slam them to the ground, stomp them into the yellow dust. Zinkoff is bent over, gasping from his great effort, catching his breath. Hobin comes to him. He kicks dust over Zinkoff's sneakers. Zinkoff looks up. Hobin sneers, “You're a loser. A stinkin' loser.”

Other Purples pile on.

“Yeah. You stink at
everything
. Why do you even
do
stuff?”

“Yeah. Why do you even get outta
bed
in the morning?”

“He prolly even screws
that
up!”

One Purple shakes his fist. “We coulda had
medals
!”

They file by. Some whisper the word. Some say it aloud. Each pronounces it perfectly.

“Loser.”

“Loser.”

“Loser.”

“Loser.”

“Loser.”

 

He hopes his parents won't ask him about Field Day at dinner, but they do. They say, “How'd it go?”

“How'd what go?” he says.

“Field Day.”

“Oh, okay.” Trying to sound like it's not worth talking about. Don't ask who won, he prays.

And they don't. They ask: “Was it fun?” and “What was your favorite race?” and “Did you get all sweaty?”

And he thinks he's out of the woods when Polly pipes up: “Didja win?”

He screams at her. “No! Okay?”

And everybody stops chewing and stares and he runs from the dinner table crying. He half
expects his father to follow him up to his room, but he doesn't. Instead, he calls up: “Hey, want to go for a ride?” Zinkoff is always asking to go for a ride, and his father always says not unless there's someplace particular to go, or it's a waste of gas.

Zinkoff doesn't need to be asked twice. He flies downstairs and off they go in Clunker Six. There's some chitchat in the car, but most of it goes from his father to the jittery dashboard. “Easy there, honeybug…no big deal…I'm right here…” The rest is just a ride to no place in particular, wasting gas galore.

Even in bed that night Zinkoff can still feel the shake and shimmy of the old rattletrap, and coming through loud and clear is a message that was never said. He knows that he could lose a thousand races and his father will never give up on him. He knows that if he ever springs a leak or throws a gasket, his dad will be there with duct tape and chewing gum to patch him up, that no matter how much he rattles and knocks, he'll always be a honeybug to his dad, never a clunker.