Racing the Rain (16 page)

“You are either going to kill yourself or you're going to be all-state, Cassidy,” he said.

Cassidy gave him a tired little wave as he stumbled toward the locker room. He would have a long bike ride across a spooky old World War II airfield to get home, and his dinner would be in the oven, barely warm but still waiting for him. Some nights he could barely eat it.

Outside in the chilly night air as he mounted his beat-up ten-speed, Cassidy felt his quivering thighs protesting. They did not want to go back to work so soon. He knew from experience that they would be all right in a few minutes.

In the middle of his ride across the dark, abandoned airfield, he would look up at the clear panoply of winking stars and feel like the last person on the planet. It was a biting kind of loneliness that had surprised and almost frightened him as the days became shorter. Now it was familiar, almost comforting.

And too, before leaving the gym that night he realized that he had finally become comfortable with the most forlorn sound in athletics: a solitary dripping showerhead in the far corner of a deserted locker room late at night. It was, he realized finally, the answer to the question:
What does excellence sound like?

He was fifteen years old, he could touch the third row of knots on the net, and though he had not yet made a single basketball team he had tried out for, he was never the last one picked anymore.

I
t was not even midmorning, but it was already stifling as the second-period gym class waited in the bleachers for Coach Stoddard to waddle out in his squeaky ripple-soled coaching shoes to take role. It was their first day of high school and as hot as any day in the summer had been, but even the heat couldn't suppress the ambient excitement.

They were not “dressed out” today. This class would merely be a somnambulant orientation session (“You will be required to bring with you on Monday of every week the following: one pair of clean cotton gym shorts, red in color; one clean jock strap of the appropriate size . . .”).

Cassidy sat next to a faintly unpleasant kid he had known since second grade, Gary Castleton, a redheaded, fox-faced creature who perpetually looked as if he had just smelled something distasteful.

“Are you going out for basketball?” Gary asked.

Cassidy, trying not to show too much enthusiasm, said that he was.

“You won't make it,” Gary sneered dismissively.

Cassidy was surprised at his own visceral reaction to this pronouncement. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His scalp actually tingled at this casual prediction of failure.

Somehow he knew it wasn't personal. As far as he knew, Gary Castleton had never even seen Cassidy so much as pick up a basketball. His prediction of unavoidable failure was generic in nature. Cassidy wouldn't make the team because nobody Gary Castleton knew would make it. Those twelve spots were reserved for a handful of extraordinary beings, and Gary Castleton wanted Cassidy to understand that he was anything but extraordinary, just like Gary himself.

His was the voice of the real world, issuing a stinging denunciation of a foolish dreamer.

The all-purpose negativity of people like Gary was loathsome to Cassidy, and he realized later that the reason he resented them was that, statistically speaking, such people were usually right. And if Gary was right about him, it meant that Cassidy was a fatuous idiot, throwing away his life in empty, smelly gymnasiums, running laps around hardscrabble tracks, busting his gut in claustrophobic weight rooms, choking down ridiculous mail-order protein pills. And for what?

For the chance to prove sniveling naysayers like Gary Castleton spectacularly correct in the most public, the most final, the most humiliating manner possible: a typed list on a bulletin board at the bottom of the stairs in a high school gymnasium. A list on which his name was, simply, not.

Cassidy readily understood that most dreamy high school thespians would not become international movie stars; most tots prancing across stages wearing rhinestone tiaras would not become Miss America; most ROTC standouts would not become heroes or astronauts.

But at the same time he was pretty sure that a few would. He had to believe in his heart that some of them would do these things. He understood that, even if Gary Castleton did not.

What he really blamed Gary for was his almost joyful renunciation of The Possible. Gary would not even acknowledge some tiny sliver of one percent of humanity actually
would
wear an Olympic garland; actually
would
be handed an Oscar by a smiling and envious colleague; actually
would
fly a rocket to the moon and whack golf balls into orbit.

That night at the gym, the thought of Gary Castleton's sneering dismissal would drive Cassidy through an extra fifty jump shots from the top of the key, an extra twenty hooks from each side, an extra ten full-court layups. All of it leaving him a pile of mush once more, leaning unsteadily against the safety pad, gasping for breath in the dank and empty gymnasium.

Stumbling to the locker room, he contemplated his long, dark bike ride home and the cooling dinner awaiting him.
Maybe Gary Castleton is right
, Cassidy thought, eyeing the sky full of bright stars over the deserted airfield.
But then again, maybe he isn't.

Some have to be chosen.
Maybe I am one.

T
he first clue that something was up was when they were stopped by the MP at the entrance to Fort Murphy. Accustomed to breezing through without slowing down, Stiggs and Cassidy almost wrecked their bikes when they heard the first angry blast from the guard's whistle. After that it was all “yes, sir” and “no, sir” to the black airman in full regalia, including leggings, white MP helmet, white cord epaulets, nightstick, and .45 automatic. They usually just wore fatigues and waved everyone through. But this one demanded their military IDs, and when they were produced, stuck them on his clipboard and began making notations. As he was writing, his attitude seemed to change and he no longer seemed so ticked off.

“Hey, what gives?” asked Randleman. “Nobody ever stopped us before.”

“Yeah,” said Cassidy. “There an inspection or something?”

The MP handed their cards back.

“What are you, kiddin' me?” he said. “Haven't you guys heard what's goin' on?”

Cassidy knew only that his parents had been strangely quiet, shooting glances at each other at dinner.

“We're just kids,” said Randleman. “We can hardly find out the correct time.”

“Well, how 'bout this. How about we're at Defcon three,” said the guard, turning to deal with the cars stacking up. “If we go to Defcon two, no dependents allowed at all. So enjoy base privileges while you can.”

“Yes, sir,” said Cassidy.

“Yes, sir,” said Stiggs.

“And you,” said the guard, pointing his clipboard back at Cassidy, “stop shootin' so much.”

Cassidy studied the guard's face.

“Dee-troit!”

“Yeah. Now get outta here. These other guys been waitin'.”

“That was Dee-troit?” said Randleman as they pedaled toward the gym. “I never saw him in anything but those gross red shorts and black Converse high-tops.”

“Yeah,” said Cassidy. “Most people look different when they're armed.”

* * *

Mr. Kamrad was more wound up than usual in civics class. It was known to some around school that while a student at Rollins College in Winter Park, Mr. Kamrad had hung out with people who wore beards. He had allegedly sat around drinking flavored coffees at a place called the Careera Room, where he discussed the conformist masses and the men in gray flannel suits who led them around like sheep. He was even rumored to be friends with a beatnik writer guy who lived in a little bungalow on Clouser Avenue in College Park with, of all things, his mother. The guy's name was Kerouac.

Mr. Kamrad these days was pretty straitlaced and his hair was shorn almost to military precision, as befitting a man who had started the only high school crew team in the southeastern United States, but he was said to still harbor some fairly exotic political views. This made for interesting discussions in this new kind of civics class that had recently been added by legislative fiat from Tallahassee. The class was actually called “Americanism versus Communism,” which everyone had to pass before they could graduate in the state of Florida. It was Mr. Kamrad's last semester to teach it, so Cassidy got permission to take it early. Almost everyone else in the class was a senior.

“How many of you saw the president on TV last night?” Mr. Kamrad asked. Nearly every hand went up.

“Would anyone care to sum up what he said? Alan?”

Alan Mcree was the son of a full bird colonel, an honor student, a football player, and a shoe-in for an appointment to the Air Force Academy. He also, incongruously, did a pretty good rendition of the Kingston Trio's “Scotch and Soda” on a twelve-string guitar.

“The Russians are putting missiles in Cuba. We have photographic proof from spy planes. President Kennedy said they have to take them out and we've sent the Navy to blockade Cuba. We're on military alert.”

“Okay, very good, Alan. Good, concise summary. Anybody else have a comment about what's going on?”

Cassidy thought about trying to make his and Randleman's encounter at the base into some kind of anecdote, preferably one in which he and Randleman would come off as perhaps brave or clever, but since the MP hadn't pulled his weapon—plus he was a guy they played basketball with—the incident really didn't seem to have the ingredients of a very exciting story.

A few people made comments, but they were of a piece throughout. There wasn't much controversy. Here were the Russians up to their old tricks again. What they were doing was simply unconscionable and the president had no choice but to take the steps he did. If the Russians refused to back down, then we would have to go to war.

“And what would that mean? Anyone?” Mr. Kamrad looked around the room. Everyone looked puzzled. They had always assumed it would be pretty bad, but that was as far as the thinking went.

“Why don't you enlighten us, Mr. Gravatt.”

Ronald Gravatt, a pleasant-looking dark-haired boy in horn-rimmed glasses, sat up straight, a puzzled look on his face. He was probably the smartest kid in school, Harvard-bound, but against all odds was one of those clever kids who managed to be popular, too. This was probably because he was down-to-earth and funny, and he didn't carry a briefcase or wear a pocket protector.

“Sir?”

“Tell them about your primary extracurricular activity last year and specifically what you learned from it.”

“Oh. Well, I was on the debate team last year, uh, with Susan, and our topic was nuclear weapons, so . . . Uh, how far do you want me to go with this, Mr. Kamrad?”

“Just give them the basics. How might an all-out nuclear exchange come about, and what would be the general outcome.”

“Well, there are all kinds of ways it could happen, but the most likely scenario is where both sides have nukes, but one side has a big conventional advantage—like we do with Cuba, or like they do in Eastern Europe. See, there are these weapons called ‘tactical nukes,' which are relatively small nuclear devices attached to artillery shells or supposedly even torpedoes. If a general or admiral gets in a situation where he feels he's going to lose a conventional war, he will likely resort to one of these devices. The command-and-control situation on these weapons is such that the officer in the field can sometimes use them on his own authority. In other words, he may not have to go back to his superiors for any kind of launch codes or passwords.”

“So, say some general shoots one of these things off, what happens then?” asked Mr. Kamrad.

“Once the nuclear trip wire has been triggered, things will probably escalate fast. One tactical shell will be answered by two, or five, or a dozen. Then the first side decides to try to take out the other side's command and control with a larger device, then the other side responds to
that
 . . . Well, basically, it's not long before there are dozens or hundreds of strategic megaton-level weapons in the air flying toward each other. At that point, each side will probably just let go with everything they have. No reason for restraint any longer, you see.”

“And what does that look like on the ground?”

“Mr. Kamrad, I don't know how well I remember the details from last year . . .”

“It's okay, Ronald. Just do the best you can.”

“Yes, sir. Well, the first thing that would happen is the most high-priority targets would get hit by submarine-launched missiles from just a couple hundred miles offshore, maybe closer than that. Russia has about seventy of those. We have twice as many. They would be aimed at taking out ICBM launch sites out west and our North American SAC bases, to stop the bombers. Also, some would be used for a so-called decapitation strike at Washington and a few key military facilities, as well as New York City and maybe a handful of other population centers.”

“What kinds of defenses do we have for these weapons?”

“Well . . .”

“Come on, this is 1962, surely our scientists . . .”

“No, sir. There aren't any. None. We can't stop them, all we can do is retaliate.”

“How much warning would we have?”

“Well, none really.”

“None? But we have all these civil defense plans, evacuation routes, bomb shelters. We all know how to duck and cover. What do you mean, ‘none'?”

“Those first weapons are launched from underwater from a few miles off our coasts. They can be set to fly in a low-arc trajectory to their targets. We're talking a matter of minutes from the time they're launched till they hit. That wouldn't be enough time to alert state or local authorities, or to issue any radio alerts or set off air raid sirens.”