Yok (8 page)

At about the time the Morning Rain ceased Dad
folded up the newspaper, got up from the table, and nodded to the crook-nosed
sloth Charlie in reception. South Sors General Grammar School, where my dad, the
fit and healthy bulldog, worked as a physical education instructor, was no more
than five minutes from Fresco, and the first class started fifteen minutes after
the rain. But he was in no hurry. No preparations were required before the
lesson; he had already been working a long time when I was in day care.

The rector of the school took Harry S. Bulldog's
situation into account. For that reason Dad could always pick me up at day care
at the same time as the other cubs were picked up. We shopped for groceries on
the way home, and we prepared meals together. Dad was not a painstaking or
pretentious cook. He prepared staples, and it was our togetherness that was
important, not the spices. This continued until I was fifteen. Preparing the
food and then eating across from each other at the kitchen table, where there
were two chairs, was something I thought all families did. We missed Mom, but
while I soon made the loss into a part of my personality, it remained painful
for Dad. He talked about her often, and thanks to him she was still part of my
growing up.

The stuffed animals in and around Fresco became my
family. Dad was quick to take an interest in young boxers, and when he
accompanied them to other parts of the city for important matches in the
evening, Charlie, the sloth, always took care of me. It was a quarter hour's
quick walk to the boxing club from home. When I was eight or nine we went there
a few evenings a week, and we always hung out there on the weekends. We seldom
had any real reason to be there. It was more that we passed by, had a cup of
coffee, chatted a little. Dad might help someone with technique or tactics, and
then we went home again. For me it was as routine as the hours I spent at
school.

If Dad's nearness and openness when I was really
little had created a relationship between us that was closer than for most
fathers and sons, the respect that everyone showed him at Fresco contributed to
my growing admiration. A father doesn't need to do much to become his cub's
idol, and in my case it was enough that a couple of times he showed what he
could do with the punching bag or the jump rope. Dad himself was the first to
admit that his talent had not extended very far in the ring, but when he said
that everyone at the club objected, and soon even I believed that he really
could have gone much further.

“Your dad,” Charlie sometimes said, “is the nicest
stuffed animal that has ever been produced.”

And so he was, I could do nothing but agree. At
school there were many who were afraid of him; he could be a strict teacher. But
that he was the most considerate and loving dad you could imagine, I had always
known.

W
hen I
was twelve I started training at Fresco. I'd wanted to start earlier, but Dad
advised me to wait. He let me roam around in the big, light gym, jump rope if I
wanted, or punch one of the sandbags until I was worn out; there were always so
many active stuffed animals in there that no one minded. But he never encouraged
me. It was too soon. It had to do with coordination and maturity, he would say.
Boxing is like chess. If you're too little you should only play around, not play
for real.

But when I started sixth grade he thought it might
be time, and he set up a cautious training program. It included everything: diet
and endurance, strength and flexibility; but above all it was arranged so I
would not get tired. How many cubs had he seen come down to the club and burn
their powder in one season? But my enthusiasm knew no bounds. To me being able
to start boxing was a sign that I was big; I was no longer a little cub. It had
never been about whether I would start or not, it had only been a question of
when.

On Sundays Fresco ran a beginners' group for cubs
who had turned thirteen, and after having struggled alone with Dad for a whole
year it was amazing to start training with those my own age. In my class in
school no one boxed, and even if Dad was always around I realized, when I met
Adam Llama in the Sunday group, that I really had been missing someone. For Adam
boxing was only one activity of many. He played badminton on Saturdays and went
to rhythmics on Wednesdays, because his mom forced him. For me there was
suddenly someone to compare myself with, someone to complain with, and training
became more fun.

Adam was strong, and that served as a spur. If we
were doing pushups he managed fifty when I could do forty, he was always a
couple of steps ahead of me when we did interval training, and I got tangled in
the jump rope when he could always keep going a few more minutes. Dad seldom got
involved when I trained with Adam; he realized that it was a different kind of
training, and that the camaraderie was just as important as the training
results. He liked my new friend, and often spoke of him in appreciative
terms.

“Adam has tremendous explosiveness in his right
arm,” Dad might say, and somehow I felt proud then.

When we turned fourteen we got to go up in the ring
and start boxing for real. We had various sorts of protection on, and if someone
got angry and blew up, training was immediately stopped. It was hard to explain.
The idea of the sport was to hit each other, and at the club everyone bragged
about their knockouts, but at the same time they were afraid of conflict and
extremely careful about the cubs and future prospects. I would go up with Adam
because we knew each other so well. Usually I could only do one or two rounds
before I was through. Dad said that was due to my footwork. I danced in the
ring, while Adam was so agile he didn't need to jump around as much.

I never thought about what I am sure Dad had
already seen. I was living in a dream world, absorbed by my training and my
friendship with Adam. I was doing well in school, I was happy at Fresco, but the
bubble burst one month after my fifteenth birthday when Adam unexpectedly
reported that he was quitting boxing. It was his badminton coach who forced him
to choose. He was promising in both sports, but to advance to the elite level he
had to focus. And then, under his mom's influence, I contended, he chose the
racket and shuttlecock.

I was devastated of course, and in Adam's absence I
finally realized what everyone, including my father, already knew: I had fallen
far behind the others in my age group; I was a mediocre athlete.

J
ust
as in my young years I had been Dad's biggest supporter, he now proved to be
mine. The insight about my limitations came as a shock, and I, who to this point
had been spared the anxiety of puberty, had my first existential crisis. I lost
the desire to train, I was truant from school, and I closed myself in and didn't
help with cooking. It sounds a little ridiculous, but keep in mind that Dad and
I had cooked together basically my whole life.

Dad left me alone. Afterward he said he understood
that it was a grief process, and that each and every one of us has to do that
sort of thing our own way. When I opened the door and came out of my room a week
later, he was as wise as you might expect. He said that training was not about
results, not at my age, it was about laying a foundation for the future. That
boxing was not a sport but a way of life. At Fresco we had our family, and a
healthy life had nothing to do with how many squats you could do.

Slowly he lured me back to the gym. Once again it
was him and me, now that Adam was out of the picture. But I had changed forever
and couldn't turn back time. From having listened to Dad, I now paid attention
to myself in relation to all the others. And the comparison was not flattering.
When I practiced footwork, stumbled, and lost my focus, Dad smiled in a way I
had always perceived as encouraging. Now I saw that there was something else in
his smile. When I practiced with the punching bag and wasn't able to hold my
arms up after a couple of minutes, I felt something different in the consoling
paw he placed on my back.

Disappointment.

“You're still developing, Gary,” he might say when
we had dinner together. “No one knows what your reflexes, your muscles, your
coordination are going to look like in a few years. The important thing is not
to be the best. The important thing is to exercise in a way that means you feel
well.”

I looked down at my plate. Why hadn't I heard the
sorrow in his voice before?

D
uring
all of ninth grade I got up an hour earlier than I had to and did strength
training. Stomach, back, and shoulders. I still hoped I could live up to his
expectations. I would have done anything to avoid seeing the sorrow in his eyes
when again and again I ran too slow, hit too slackly, or didn't move as fast as
he hoped. I also started concealing my other interests from him, because I
realized he would worry that they would encroach on training. I hid books under
the bed, because even if he had nothing against me reading, he would have
preferred seeing me improve my acceleration or explosiveness. He never said
that, of course. He was extremely careful not to make demands on me. He
repeated, in various ways and with many examples, that intent, not performance,
was the important thing. And the better Dad concealed his disappointment, the
more painful it became to see.

A
bout
the time I resumed training after Adam stopped boxing, there were four parallel
fifth-grade classes at South Sors General Grammar School where my father taught,
and during gym classes they were put together, two and two. But the males were
not separated from the females. Now and then a parent protested the mixed
classes, but the school resisted making any changes.

In Harry S. Bulldog's class almost fifty ten- and
eleven-year-old stuffed animals ran into the gym and lined up in their places.
Dad believed in discipline at school.

“Good morning, pupils!” Dad shouted.

“Good morning, Schoolmaster,” the cubs
responded.

With energy and enthusiasm Harry S. Bulldog then
divided the pupils into four teams, and they made their way out to the
schoolyard.

South Sors General Grammar School was the largest
building along the street, the largest building in the area, and on the
schoolyard there was a small patch of woods for the cubs to play in at recess.
Across from the school some craftsmen had opened shops in recent years, and
shoemakers, seamstresses, bakers, and cabinetmakers ensured that animals came
and went on the sidewalks.

Dad's ambition was to divide his time evenly among
the four teams, but when Rector Bergdorff showed up at the sprinting track,
class was almost half over and Dad had only helped with the long-jump group.

The rector waved discreetly, and Dad excused
himself and left the jumping group. The two adults placed themselves under an
oak by the side of the cricket field, out of earshot but within view of
everything going on in the yard.

“I'm sorry to disturb you like this, Harry, but I
have promised to answer . . . a certain animal . . . before
lunch. This is about the selection for the City Athletic Championship.”

“Yes?”

Harry S. Bulldog knew exactly what this was about.
He understood it as he turned in the lists of who would compete for South Sors
General Grammar School last week. He had made his selections. This year he
wanted to win.

“If I understand this correctly,” the rector
continued cautiously, “we are sending no more than ten cubs this year?”

“May be right,” Bulldog said, shrugging his
shoulders.

“And last year there were eighteen from our
school?”

“May be right.”

“And Leonard Louse is not one of the ten we're
sending?”

“No, he's not.”

“While Fox Antonio Ortega is registered in all
events?”

Harry S. Bulldog again shrugged his shoulders.

“You realize, Harry,” said Rector Bergdorff, “I've
been on the phone all morning with Louse's father. He maintains that it's not
just him, there are a number of parents who think this is outrageous. Fox
Antonio Ortega is not . . . one of the school's stronger pupils. And
his family is . . . well, I'll make no judgments on the cub's family,
but many are upset that we are giving someone special treatment who
. . . that is, why don't we give more cubs the chance to distinguish
themselves during the championships?”

“Excuse me,” said Harry S. Bulldog, “but you said
‘distinguish themselves'?”

“Please, Bulldog, this is about eleven-year-olds,”
said Bergdorff. “They're in the fifth grade. There is time for them to win and
lose many times before they leave school. Shouldn't we—”

“Look,” Dad interrupted, pointing. “Look at
him.”

At the long-jump pit Fox Antonio Ortega had just
started his run-up, and now he quickly picked up speed. Harry S. Bulldog could
not keep from smiling. Never in his professional life, neither as a boxer nor as
a gym teacher, had he seen anything like it. Fox Antonio Ortega was a physical
miracle. It was not only the promise of great deeds in the way he moved, there
was something so powerfully well-balanced about the fox's whole appearance that
whatever sport he chose, he was meant to write sports history.

Fox Antonio Ortega was my absolute opposite.

Dad pointed, and Rector Bergdorff could see for
himself. Fox's running gait was magnificent, aggressive but butterfly light at
the same time. Even at the age of eleven he was a polished diamond. His sense of
timing was complete; raw strength in combination with a focused desire to train
would force every obstacle out of the way to medals and millions.

Harry S. Bulldog felt no envy on his own behalf; it
was impossible to envy perfection, because it was unachievable. But
unconsciously he must have compared the fox with me; it was unavoidable because
I had been running around the same schoolyard a few years earlier. The gym
teacher's son, who trained and trained but still wasn't able to achieve any
results. Every time I stumbled, every time my energy gave out at the finish,
every time the bar quivered and fell, it must have been like a knife that cut a
little piece out of Dad's heart. He could not have helped feeling that way, nor
could I.