Racing the Rain (13 page)

Cassidy jogged up to the starting line, feeling like his legs were filled with helium. The spikes weighed nothing at all.

“Last call for the all-comers 880,” said the announcer.

Cassidy could see Coach Bickerstaff on the infield arguing with one of the officials. The official kept shaking his head and pointing to his clipboard. Bickerstaff finally slammed his own clipboard against his thigh and stalked off.

Cassidy walked onto the track. There were only two other runners.

“In the open division, in lane one, from Glenridge Junior High, but running unattached, is Quenton Cassidy . . .”

There was polite applause, but Cassidy mostly heard Trapper's booming cheer.

“In lane two, formerly of Hialeah but running unattached, is Dan McKillip . . .”

More polite applause. He looked too muscular for a distance runner but seemed entirely at ease, wearing a white singlet with green piping. Cassidy was embarrassed by his own Kissam Building Supply T-shirt, which he had almost outgrown.

“And finally, in lane three, formerly of Dunedin, a former runner-up in the Pinellis County high school mile run, running unattached tonight, is Del Ramers!”

He must have brought his own fan club, because Ramers got considerably more response from the crowd than the other two had. His uniform was maroon with gold piping. Cassidy was alarmed to see the uniform was from Florida State. Was this guy a
college
runner?

What have I gotten myself into?
Cassidy thought. Then he noticed that Ramers, although fit looking, seemed to have a little bit of extra padding around the waist, like maybe he was just coming back from an extended injury break.

Cassidy looked up in the stands, and Trapper Nelson was giving him the clenched-fist sign. Cassidy nodded.

When the gun went off, he couldn't believe how fast the other two took off. It was as if he were still standing at the starting line. They had ten yards on him going into the first turn, the powerful McKillip leading, with Ramers on his outside shoulder.
It doesn't make any difference how big that guy is
, Cassidy thought,
he can flat out
run.

Cassidy did his best to relax and loosen his stride, and he seemed to be matching the other two through the turn and starting down the back straight. There was a coach at the halfway post reading off split times, and as the pair went by up ahead Cassidy heard: “Twenty-
eight
, twenty-
nine
 . . .”

They were running under a two-minute pace! Cassidy went by in thirty-one seconds, feeling like a fool in his old T-shirt and his borrowed shoes. Still, this was faster than he had ever run in a race and he had to admit he felt pretty good.
Of course I do,
he thought.
It never felt bad until the first lap was over.
Trapper had put him through two solid weeks of those horrendous ladder and stepladder intervals. Trapper had written down all his times and had even called Archie San Romani again to get last-second advice.

Cassidy ran as evenly as he could all through the turn, and when they got back to the starting post again, he was only five yards behind. McKillip was still leading as the timer began reading: “Sixty-
two
, sixty-
three
, sixty-
four
. . .
” And that's where he was, two seconds back.

Now Ramers was fighting his way around McKillip going into the first turn. Though they had clearly slowed down after their blazing first 220, they were both full of fight. Cassidy found himself watching the duel up ahead when the
crack!
of the gun—going off late for some reason—brought him back to reality and he realized that he had less than a lap to run in this race. And he realized something else:
he still felt okay.
There was no telling how good his conditioning really had been all that time he was injured, and now that he had healed and been put through some paces designed by an Olympic miler, Cassidy realized, for the first time in his life:
I am a real runner.

He slowly worked his way back to within striking distance of the other two.
Tell him not to make moves too quickly in a race
, San Romani had counseled Trapper.
It wa
stes energy.

When they reached the halfway post, Cassidy was drafting directly behind them. McKillip had retaken the lead but Ramers was right on his shoulder. Just before they reached the post, Cassidy saw Ramers look back, surprised to see Cassidy, who was just striding along, studying the heels of the other two.

“One thirty-
four
, one thirty-
five
,” and that was it, they were all past the post. The crowd was getting into it now, and Cassidy could hear Demski's voice screaming—without a stutter!—as he ran across the infield toward him. Now Cassidy started really paying attention to the older runners. The big guy, McKillip, was clearly beginning to struggle. Ramers was running smoothly, but Cassidy saw him looking back nervously once more. Finally, just as they came out of the final curve, Ramers made his move and went by the struggling McKillip, who began to tie up and slide to the outside of the first lane.

Cassidy had been getting ready to try to pass him and go after Ramers, but now the lane was open directly in front of him. Not only that, Ramers hadn't bothered to move back to the inside lane, so the path was open all the way to the finish line.

When he finally launched into an all-out kick, Cassidy was amazed at how much he had left. He went by the slowing McKillip in an instant, and—as the crowd shrieked in his ears—pulled up on the inside of Ramers without the other runner even knowing he was there. Ramers took one more look over his outside shoulder as Cassidy made a final lunge to get past him. He broke the yarn with his chest and was grateful when someone caught him and prevented him from going right into the asphalt.

He grabbed his knees, gasping, dizzy but completely elated. He had never felt so wonderful in his life. When he straightened up, Ramers was standing beside him, arm around him, panting.

“Who. Are. You?” Ramers gasped.

“H-h-h-his name's Cassidy!” said Demski, taking his other arm, “and he just ran 2:03.7 for the h-h-half-mile.”

“Ed,” Cassidy said, “these shoes. Haven't. Lost. Tonight!”

C
assidy was surprised when Coach Bickerstaff came up to him in the hallway the next day and shook his hand.

“Congratulations, Quenton, that was a fine effort. Because your race was unofficial, Demski will still have the county record, but you might want to know that I am submitting both Ed's 2:07 and your 2:03.7 to the athletic director as new school records. I have no doubt they will both be approved, though yours, of course, will be the one that counts from now on,” he said. “I hope you will consider coming out for track again next year.”

But Cassidy—though he didn't say anything to Bickerstaff—was already starting to think about basketball again. It was great to win races, but he had finally realized how little everyone cared about track. Basketball was different; the whole school was crazy about it.

Over the last weeks of school, Bickerstaff remained cordial to him, despite a decided coolness. On the other hand, Cassidy really liked Coach Burke, the basketball coach.

All that summer Stiggs and Randleman seemed to gain height daily. They were both pushing six feet by the start of their ninth school year. Even Cassidy was no longer such a runt.

“Five feet nine and a half inches!” pronounced his father, measuring the highest mark on the kitchen doorjamb, while his mother made the appropriate oohs and ahhs. He was now taller than his mom.

He still couldn't hold a candle to his two friends on the basketball court, but every now and then when the giants let their guard down, he struck a meager blow for the little people of the world.

He ran some on the beach, occasionally with Trapper, and he sometimes did one of San Romani's workouts just to stay in shape, but basketball became his thing again, and he played nearly every day throughout the summer.

When school started, his whole world—like that of around fifty boys in the school—was focused on making the first cut.

Even if you never made a team in your life, if you made the first cut you would
be
somebody. You would carry a mark of distinction that would forever set you apart from the teeming throngs of beautiful dreamers. “There goes Cassidy,” they would say. “Last year he made the first cut.”

At the bigger schools in the county, there might be up to a hundred wannabes “coming out.” For many of them it would be an act of blatant hubris, offering themselves up for certain ridicule. Everything would be decided by a single afternoon's ad hoc scrimmage, the coaches watching and making notations on their ever-present clipboards. On this first go-round, one scrimmage was all they needed to eliminate the obvious chaff. That was all the first cut did. It said to about thirty boys: you're not so awful that we can eliminate you at a glance.

The next morning they'd post The List outside the gym and a knot of boys would form around it. A few confident ones would glance at it quickly before trundling off to class. A few shamefaced ones would break out of the knot and hurry off, hoping no one saw their brimming eyes.

The coaches didn't enjoy crushing young dreams, but they needed to get an uncluttered look at the handful that might amount to something. Among them would be the sure things, the boys who had previously made the team, along with some others who had come close and would thus be remembered. In a practical sense, the whole process really boiled down to which three or four additional boys would be selected from among the throngs of earnest strivers.

To anyone who hoped to become an athlete, making the first cut was a requisite milestone. Making the second cut was almost as good as making the team, at least as far as your reputation went. You would have been a boy or two from being an anointed one.

Coach Burke had a completely neutral look on his face as he made his way through the small throng of boys to the bulletin board. He avoided all eye contact as he thumb-tacked the single page to the board and closed and locked the glass door before making his way back out, still avoiding all eye contact.

Cassidy was right up front and found himself crushed against the glass. He leaned back away from the case so he could clearly read the notice:

Coach Blythe and I want to thank all the boys who came out for basketball this year. We are sorry that we are able to select only 12 players from this group, as there are many talented athletes among those we saw. The following 25 players please report to the gym tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 p.m., dressed out and ready to scrimmage:

Joe Walton

Ralph Erickson

Phil Jameson

Kent Stewart

Samuel Stiggs

Erich Randleman

Quenton Cassidy . . .

Cassidy could read no farther. He stumbled out of the crowd and wandered aimlessly down the hall, vaguely aware that Stiggs and Randleman had come running by on their way to class, pounding him on the back and hooting. A few other guys gave him friendly slaps, too. Cassidy, walking along in a kind of trance, didn't speak.

It was several minutes before he realized he had walked to the end of the corridor in Building A, and his homeroom was all the way at the other end of Building B.

Shaking his welling eyes clear at last, he chuckled and turned and hurried back in the opposite direction. It almost seemed like a miracle, or something he had just imagined, but there it was in black and white—others had seen it too: Quenton Cassidy had made the first cut!

* * *

Nothing so wonderful could last, of course.

The second-cut list did not include the name Cassidy. Stiggs and Randleman were on it, but not him. Again that winter they would be among the favored few whom everyone else, Cassidy included, would get to watch from the bleachers.

He wasn't so deluded as to allow this turn of events to get him down. He'd known his chances were slim. Besides, he couldn't help feel that things were turning around for him. He was no longer this skinny little nerd with delusions of grandeur, no longer just Stiggs and Randleman's mascot. He was distinctly aware that people seemed to know who he was in the hallways and people he didn't know said hi. It had never occurred to him how nice that would be.

At long last it began to dawn on him that he might actually
be
somebody. He was, after all, the school record holder in the half-mile! And he had made the first cut!

I
t was an unusually cool, bright Saturday morning, and Cassidy was biking back across the Blue Heron Bridge when he heard the distinctive bleat from Trapper Nelson's beleaguered Jeep. He hadn't seen him in more than a month. As soon as they were off the bridge, he pulled over and Trapper idled up beside him and turned off the ignition. The engine dieseled for a few seconds before finally coughing to a halt.

“Whatcha doin'?” said Trapper.

He had to talk over the traffic noise. He was dressed in his usual quasi-military garb: army fatigue cutoffs, with half-laced-up combat boots and no socks.

“Shooting hoops over by the Colonnades,” said Cassidy. “I was going to go in the inlet to look for gray grouper, but it seemed too cold and I just didn't get around to it.” He gestured to the Hawaiian spear and diving gear bungeed along his top tube.

Trapper nodded. “Should be about time for them to come in,” he said, scratching his chin. “Haven't seen any yet. Lots of snook around the dock pilings, though. Got three nice ones the other day.”

Cassidy nodded.

“What's going on with basketball?” asked Trapper.