74: Speech

The next weekend, we had two games. It seemed like we'd hardly been playing yet, but there would be no games the next weekend because of Thanksgiving. So we played Friday night and Saturday afternoon this weekend. Coach Hancock had come into the gym on Monday morning while Whitney and I were working out before school. It had gotten too cold and snowy to practice outside at home. We had a mat down and had moved from forms to sparring. Coach blew his ever-present whistle and we backed off, turning to face him.

Coach walked right up to me and pulled my shirt up out of my pants. I had a couple bruises that were past their prime, but that's when they always look the worst with the yellow/orange glow around them. He looked at Whitney. She pulled her shirt up just below her bra and showed him her bruises.

"How long have you two been doing this?"

"Uh ... almost two years, sir."

"With no gloves?"

"No, sir."

"Do either of you have any idea how stupid that is? Those bruises after the game last year?"

"Coach, we've only been sparring since July and didn't do it most of the summer," Whitney said.

"So mostly you've been beating the crap out of each other for two-and-a-half months."

"Yessir."

"You can't do it here. Even with gloves. If the school administration found out we were allowing full contact martial arts in the gym I'd be out a job and you'd probably both be expelled."

"It's too cold to work outside now."

"You shouldn't be in full contact without protection anyway," Coach said. He looked at me. "Who is your master?" I didn't know how to answer so I looked at Whitney. She nodded. "Ah. And yours?"

"Master Cho, Coach."

"Tai Chi?"

"Rarely, Master Cho takes a disciple ... for more advanced training. I have been with him for eight years."

"Black belt?"

"We don't use belts. We don't even use a gi. That's Japanese. Master Cho is very traditional. I often wear a basketball uniform. He suggested a couple years ago that I begin training my own disciple. We would rather that no one know our relationship or use of the art."

"You should use pads."

"We have never used pads."

"I can't have you sparring in the gym. Katas, yes, but no sparring. Doesn't Master Cho have a place where you can work?"

"Master Cho would rather not know my disciple."

"I'll work on it. For now, you both need work on your upper body strength. Brian, your three-point shot is barely making the rim. Five times up the rope. Each of you. Every morning. Go. Go. Go."

Whitney and I ran for the ropes. I always hated this, but Whitney reached and grabbed the first rope and I leapt for the second so she didn't get ahead of me. I'm her disciple? What the fuck?

Two thick ropes hang side-by-side from the rafters of the gym. In Phys Ed, you have to show that you can get up the rope. You can shimmy, scoot, or climb any way you want. There were grade tapes marked off at ten foot intervals with the 'A' and a bell on the beam forty feet up. We both knew what Coach wanted. We went hand-over-hand. That's the fastest way and demands the most upper body strength. I heard Whitney's bell half a second before I slapped mine and slid down the rope using my feet as brakes. As soon as our feet hit the floor, we started climbing again. We stayed together. It was impossibly hard work and I heard some shouts and encouragement from below as I started the fourth time up. Whitney had an unfair advantage in my book because her initial grab of the rope was much higher than mine. It was like having an extra two feet to climb.

There were lots of shouts from behind us, yelling 'go, go, go' as we started the final lap. My arms were burning. My lungs were burning. I'd never really raced anyone up the ropes and certainly not five times. The bells rang at the same time and Whitney and I both glanced at each other and smiled before we slid down. I wondered if she'd intentionally slowed on that last climb. We hit the floor and everybody started clapping. There were about a dozen athletes that we often saw in the morning lifting weights when we came in.

"Get in line!" Coach yelled. "Every morning, five climbs, every athlete. Let's get strong." A couple guys groaned but grabbed the resin bag and started to climb. They didn't even pretend to race. Whitney and I headed for the showers.

"Well done, Grasshopper," she snarked at me just before we reached the locker rooms.

Whatever Coach's goal was in making us climb, my arms felt like jelly all week. All through practice I could hardly get the ball to the rim. Coach just shook his finger at me and said, "See? You need more upper body work."

"Where is everybody?" I asked. I sat in Ms. Streeter's classroom five minutes after the last bell and just half an hour from basketball practice. It was Thursday and she was having after-school meetings with each category representative for the speech contest coming up the first weekend of December.

"It seems that you are the only one preparing for the Oral Interpretation of Poetry division," she sighed. "I just can't get people to volunteer for this."

"You mean I had a choice?"

"Not anymore. I already registered you. Now, what do you want to interpret?" This was going to be tricky. The poems got to me on Wednesday and when I read them I knew this was what I had to read. I knew where they came from but the envelope had no return address and was postmarked in Goshen. The simple typed note said, 'Use these. If you dare. N'

"I have two poems by a little-known author," I said. I reached to hand them to her. She waved me away.

"Let's hear." I hadn't read them aloud yet and I found some of the cadences were harder to get around than I thought. The reading was pretty flat, even to my ear. "You can't read those poems for competition," she said when I was finished.

"But..."

"Not like that. These poems require depth and emotion. You read them like a grocery list. Where did you get these?"

"They were sent to me ... um ... by the author."

"Nat Hart? Who is he?"

"I don't know, but I like his poetry."

"The rules state that the poem must be by a recognized poet. We need to know who Nat Hart is." I wasn't going to tell my suspicions.

"The Argosy Review published one of his poems."

"Really?"

"He sent a clipping. I didn't like that one as well as these two." I showed her the clipping from the Argosy Review. Ms. Streeter smiled and nodded.

"Well, that takes care of that criterion, but there is still the matter of your oral interpretation."

"I haven't had a chance to practice them yet."

"Work on them this weekend. I know you have basketball practice coming up quickly, so I won't keep you now and I'm meeting with other category presenters after school the rest of this and next week. I'd like you to see me during your lunch hour on Tuesday. We'll go over interpretation."

"I can do them?"

"You may do them. It remains to be seen if you can."

Amazingly, Friday night I was hitting my long shots and helped the team to a 63-58 victory over Silver Lake. Our poor varsity squad was still trying to get its act together. Lionel was anchoring the team and set a personal best with 28 points and 17 rebounds. Unfortunately, he had none of the heavy duty support he'd had the past two years. The varsity lost.

On Saturday, we met Adams, one of the traditional powerhouses. The roles were reversed; the JV lost by seven and the varsity won walking away. They were stoked. It was fortunately a short bus ride home and I spent the rest of the weekend reciting poetry to Gypsy, Princess, and Jingo. It must have been pretty bad, because as soon as I opened the barn door, all three horses ran through the snow for the back woods. I went to the hayloft and continued to practice and attempt to memorize the poems. Technically, the competition was a reading, so you didn't have to memorize the poetry, but these pieces just called out for expression that I couldn't give if I didn't memorize it. For all I knew, I couldn't do justice to them anyway. It was a lot harder than I thought.

"Wait, wait, wait. You can't just depend on teenaged angst to get the message across. You have to think about what message the poet is getting across and match the emotions to it. What's the message here?" Ms. Streeter asked. I was in her classroom again and my stomach was growling because I missed lunch.

"It's about a guy who's angry because his girlfriend left him." I'd decided when I first presented the poems that I'd always refer to the author and protagonist as a male. Nat Hart. Had to be a male.

"Oh, that's so shallow, Brian. Think. This isn't about a slighted love. This is about the massive betrayal of humanity. Who tells us lies and assures us that we're secure for life then betrays us with lack of jobs, poverty, and war?"

"Um ... the government?"

"Who promises eternal life, bliss, and joy, but attempts to harness everyone to a single way of thinking?"

"Religion?"

"Think bigger. If you are going to go all out on a limb with a poem like this, you have to go all in. Who holds happiness like a carrot on a stick and promises things that you can only verify in death?"

"God!"

"This author isn't writing about a lover's betrayal. Look at the imagery. 'Washed in the blood.' 'Tell me lies.' 'Promises are always broken.' Elevate your interpretation and make the poem universal instead of tying the author to an inconsequential daily event. No one gets this shaken up over the loss of a lover."

I got a little pissed. What did she know about the loss of a lover? What did she know about individual torment and a teenager's love? How could she possibly know what was going through Nicki's mind when she wrote this? But maybe that was part of what I had to do. Nicki put a huge amount of trust in me when she sent these poems, even though the way she did it gave her plausible deniability. There was nothing that tied her to them and even if I told people she wrote them, all she'd have to do is deny it and say I was lying. I started reading again.

"Tell me lies. Tell me lies. Tell me true love never dies."

"That's better. Brian, this is a risky poem-set to present at a competition. The rape of the earth. Humanity's suicidal march to the end times. God's betrayal of his creation. Think about it over the break and practice it. You have enough intelligence to find deeper meanings in things that sound obvious. We'll meet at lunch on Tuesday and Thursday next week. And for God's sake, bring your lunch. I can't stand to hear your stomach growling in the middle of your reading."

Thanksgiving break was full. We got up early Thursday morning and went to Kokomo. We got there so early that I surprised the girls in bed. We kissed and tickled and played, but didn't get too involved because I had to get bread started. We all three went to the kitchen and discovered Mom, Dad, and Anna had disappeared.

"I think they expected us to be a little longer before we came to the kitchen," Courtney giggled. "Probably lucky we didn't find them all naked on the table."

"Our parents are in love," Jennifer stated. "Does that bother you, Brian?" I kissed Jennifer and slid a floury hand inside her robe to leave fingerprints all over her left breast.

"No. It should, I suppose, but I've never seen Mom and Dad so happy. Ten minutes ago I had a hand on each of your pussies while you both kissed me and each other. I was happy. I had a feeling you were, too. It's weird to think of your parents as sexually active and I admit that once when I was a freshman, I panicked when I realized I'd interrupted their love-making. But Mom and Dad are both young at heart. And Anna's a fox. Believe me, I saw her naked enough times this summer to verify that. Why shouldn't our parents be as happy as we are when we're together?"

"You need to tell us where we're going to college, Brian," Courtney said. I kissed her and used my other hand to leave a floury print on her right breast. "You know you're going to have to clean that off."

"Why do I need to decide where we're going to college?"

"Because our early acceptance applications are all ready to go and we don't know where to send them."

"You are convinced that we're going to the same school?"

"Brian, unless you tell us that you don't love us and don't want to be with us in the future, we are going wherever you are going. I'd be tempted to wait and go to community college this year and transfer next year so we all go at the same time. I love you, Brian," Courtney declared.

"I have to think about it. It seems like a bunch of the others want to go to the same school, too."

"You don't think we're the only ones who are in love with you, do you?" Jennifer asked. "And if we didn't think Samantha and Rhonda would join us, we'd be devastated."

"There's no way to know what Rhonda will do. I've sent her a letter every other week, but I never hear back."

"She hasn't returned any of our calls," Jennifer said. "I just know it will work out somehow. I just know it."

"How about the others?" Courtney asked. "Who else wants to be part of our group?"

"It's bigger than I thought," I said.

"That's what I always say," Courtney giggled.

"Come on." I punched the bread a little harder than necessary. "Rose."

"Oh yeah," Jennifer sighed.

"Liz hasn't decided if she's going to college or technical school or just trying to get a job. But she plans to do it wherever we are."

"Is she going to be your first?" Jennifer asked. "She can hardly wait until she's seventeen. I bet she'll try to rub you to a stub."

"I don't know. Now that I'm, uh ... eligible, I find that I'm not that anxious. I mean, I'm getting a lot of loving from my girlfriends. I guess I should be ready to go pop some cherries if I were a real man." Fortunately, both girls laughed and raised their hands. "But I'm not that anxious right now and frankly, I'm still hurting."

"Honey, we feel the same way. Since you liberated us from the no-touching rule, we've been happy. Even having your finger or tongue in our pussies is a thrill," Courtney said. "I think that with us all having been so sexually active without penetration, all the girls are less ... anxious? ... to be deflowered. Not that any of us would object, but ... Sweetheart, you aren't the only one hurting. She won't answer any of our phone calls. Her mother has told our mothers that we shouldn't call. Samantha is a wreck. She loves Rhonda almost as much as I love Jennifer. And the truth is, we love both Samantha and Rhonda about as much as we do each other and you. It's going to work out. Somehow, we just have to believe that it will work."

On Friday, Jennifer and Courtney wanted to go to the library instead of shopping. I'd read my poems to them and they were amazed that I was being allowed to use them. But they wanted to look up the Argosy Review and see if it said anything about the mysterious Nat Hart. What we discovered was that the Argosy Review had ceased publication ten years ago. The Kokomo library didn't have any copies of it. A helpful librarian directed us to The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and pointed out that it was a local publication from someplace in Illinois that was only published for about five years on a quarterly basis. The chance that we could find a copy was remote unless we went to Urbana-Champaign and tried the University of Illinois library where it would be more likely to have been added as a local publication. We really didn't have any other options, so we went shopping.

I puzzled this over for a long time. I was sure the poems were from Nicolette. No one else would have known I was competing in that division. Well, no one except everyone at my lunch table where I'd bitched about it. That even included people that weren't part of our official dating agreement. But if this was published in a magazine that hadn't even existed after ten years ago, Nicolette would have been seven years old. It couldn't be her. But it had to be her.