Chapter 118

“You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid to get in; they had paid for drinks; they intended to get something and if you didn’t give it to them, they’d run you right into the ocean.”
—Charles Bukowski, Women

24 AUGUST 2020

I came back from Chicago with lots to think about. It’s completely possible to manipulate the NSAT to get placement where you want. The old man in me always suspected there was some way people rigged the results of the tests to get what they want out of them. We’ve become a test-happy country, basing people’s worth on the results of tests. The number of perfect scores on SATs over the past years has jumped significantly with the advent of ‘study courses’ for taking the test. Teachers in school have shifted their classes from learning the subject to answering tests correctly. There’s nothing new about the approach.

Still, it almost seems like cheating. On the other hand, the National Service screws kids out of their dreams. Emily dreamed of becoming a pilot, not a truck driver. Even the offer to move onto the logistics management track would have moved her from driving a truck to scheduling trucks. Simple fact: The US Government needs truckers, not pilots. The US Military needs pilots. And when it comes down to it, commercial air carriers prefer to hire former military pilots. They even have a name for civilian pilots: Flaps—Fucking Light Aircraft Pilots.

So, is it a bad thing that Joan was able to manipulate her aptitude test to show she was a perfect fit for computer graphics, which happens to be what she wants to do? The only problem I see in it is not everyone can access that kind of guidance. Some few come by it naturally, but as I showed on my NSRE, I have a natural aptitude for math but no desire to enter a field that uses it. How can I use the math test to show an aptitude for music? Is it even possible?

We did a lot of scrambling around to get things arranged for Rachel and Livy to go to Chicago for coaching the next weekend. And Beca. She wasn’t about to miss a ride to go see her sweetheart. The way it would work was that Livy’s and Rachel’s parents agreed to go to the cross country meet in Mishawaka. As soon as Livy finished her race, her coach would sign her out to her parents for a family trip. Once they were around the corner, Livy, Rachel, and Beca would pile in the Yaris and head for Chicago. Bert, Mary, Randal, and Eva would head back to Fort Wayne.

First, we had another meet that was almost as far away. The Warsaw Invitational. We left school early on Tuesday for the ride to Warsaw. There would be two races—varsity and JV. Girls weren’t invited to this one. Twelve schools were competing and Jock said there would be about two hundred runners in each race. I wasn’t particularly stoked about this race. Now that I’d gotten a taste for running 8k and 10k races, running 5k didn’t appeal to me. I knew my steady six-minute mile pace wouldn’t put me in the top five on our team.

Jock wanted me to maintain the pace and bring our slower runners along with me. He said later in the season he could see all of them being in contention for one of the seven spots we’d be able to enter in sectional and regional competition. That was cool. If I could help make someone else a contender and still not mess up my own training, I was happy to do it.

Warsaw’s track is a mile long and you have to get around it three times. There’s a lot of monotony. There are no trees and with the number of runners on the track you could see people scattered all the way across the field with the various loops and switchbacks. And the afternoon was hot and muggy. Those were all things that conspired against the runners.

Our leaders fought loose of the pack but really had to do some sprinting for position. I led our pack runners out and despite the traffic, managed to reach a six-minute mile pace in about five hundred meters. That wasn’t great. But everyone was in the same boat and getting a slower start might have been to our benefit. By the time we completed the second circuit, we were passing runners. My guys were right in step with me. I glanced over my shoulder on one of the hairpins and saw all six of the guys who had been training with me for 8k and 10k. We were running our race.

Passing Benny the Bunny wasn’t a surprise. He was a pace-setter for the first mile and then started fading. I don’t think he’d finished a race in under twenty minutes yet. Well, I wasn’t coming close to that pace at this time last year. It was a wonder I finished races. Passing two more of our top ten runners half way around the last lap was a shock. But in the last two hundred meters when I called ‘Kick it!’ we passed three more of our top 5k guys and I was running step and step with the next one. I was stoked when I was ushered into the chute ahead of him.

Behind us the chute filled with our jerseys.

Bottles of sport drinks were shoved into our hands as we stood in line. Sweat was pouring off all of us. Across the course, I could see trainers rushing out to aid fallen runners. I guessed a third didn’t make the finish line in the heat and humidity.

When we finally got on the bus with all the windows down and wind rushing through, Jock got up to praise the team. We’d finished for a team first on both Varsity and JV. He read off the names of our top seven—the ones who were included for potential scoring. Sixth and seventh place on a team only counted if there was a tie among the top five. I was shocked to find I’d placed fourth for our team and fifteenth over all. We’d placed fifth, sixth, eleventh, fifteenth, sixteenth for a total of 53 points.

“Now listen to this,” Jock shouted over our cheers. “We also placed seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth over all. Every one of our runners was in the top 100. You beat over half the runners on the field today. That’s what a competitive team looks like. The times weren’t personal bests for any runner. We can thank the heat and humidity for that. Winning time was 16:58. Our cumulative team time was 1:33:15. But that steady pace you guys have been working on saw you through. Good work. Everybody take another bottle. Make sure you replace those fluids, gentlemen. Good work.”

School was school. We were all excited about Beca’s and my trip to Chicago and the upcoming trip by Livy, Rachel, and Beca. I was excited because the Penn Invitational was Saturday morning and it was the first time I’d be running a full 10k race. Each of the teams was allowed seven runners so there’d be around eighty at the starting line in twelve lanes. I expected teams would fill the 10k field with any runner they couldn’t put in the 5k. After all, a guy could jog 10k and still feasibly place for his school.

But the most exciting thing was the daily update on our growing patronage. Our email campaign was reaching more people than we ever expected. It was almost like having a chain letter going around. And someone posted it on Facebook as a fund raiser. By Thursday we had 150 subscribers on Patreon. They ranged from a dollar to twenty-five dollars, but we were averaging about five dollars a member. And people were hitting our website. The first thing Joan had accomplished after Beca and I left was to connect our store. We were actually selling T-shirts for the Marvel & Hopkins debut.

Mr. LeBlanc decided to have a release party even though he hadn’t seen the video. We were pulling the trigger on the email to all our patrons at eight o’clock Saturday night. We’d announced it as the premiere for patrons with the YouTube channel going active the next day. This is what patrons paid for. While the video was still playing, Cindy and I would be at our computers in a chatroom answering questions and chatting about the release live. Of course, we were invited to do that at his house. He invited Cindy and me, our parents, Vinnie and Jannie, and Ms. Devine. I stuck my neck out and asked if I could invite our production crew as we’d all intended to watch together. LeBlanc was surprised we had a crew and just gave us carte blanche to invite the people we thought were appropriate. Desi, Riko, and Riley would be back down in Kentucky. Beca, Rachel, Livy, and Joan would be in Chicago. Em was still in the middle of God-forsaken Kansas. But Brittany and Sophie would be there. Donna and Nanette both agreed to be there. And John was happy to attend. I’d been in LeBlanc’s house before, so I knew we wouldn’t be stretching his capacity.

A thunderstorm swept through northern Indiana on Saturday morning. It’s not that unusual, but on a race day there was some debate as to whether we’d be able to race. IHSAA has some pretty strict guidelines about running during stormy weather. The skies were clear by ten when the races were scheduled to start but it was still pretty windy. There were five races with girls’ varsity and junior varsity, boys’ varsity and junior varsity, and the 10k. The 10k was essentially two laps around Penn’s 5k course. We started on time and the girls’ varsity discovered the trail was wet and slippery in spots. More than one girl crossed the finish line covered in mud from a fall.

I was glad to see Livy was spattered but mostly clean when she crossed the finish line in second place. She’d really hit her stride. I had forever to wait for my race, so I went with her to meet the parents and have the coach sign her out.

“We’d stay for your race but that would cut two hours out of their day and we really shouldn’t be here when we’ve just signed our daughter out to travel with us,” Randall said.

“Drive carefully,” I said as I kissed Rachel then Livy then Beca. “We’ll talk tonight after the show.”