The Obstacle Course Read Free Page B

another one. That’s one of the things I really like about my old man, how much he believes in me.
    The boats on the river were drifting in the water, their mooring lines straining tight against the piers, the masts bare. It was quiet—the only sounds were the windblown whitecaps moving across the water, slapping against the sides of the hulls. One halyard had got unfastened, snapping back and forth against itself like a bullwhip.
    I bought a couple of hot dogs off a stand down by where the Academy keeps their racing sailboats: high-masted yawls, brought up out of the water, dry-docked for the winter. The rolls were stale—the vendor must’ve been hanging onto them since last weekend, waiting for some hungry sucker like me to take them off his hands. I ate the hot dogs and threw most of the rolls away for the seagulls.
    The sun finally came out around midafternoon, but the clouds were still hovering. The snow was half-melted, turning to slush. I hate it when snow melts like that. Somehow all the dog shit in the world surfaces under the slush, it’s like one big carpet of dog crap. I drifted around the campus, looking at the families that had come down to be with their sons. Some of the families had kids my age. They always look like they belong here, like they fit in. I think that’s part of my problem—I don’t look like I fit in.
    For a while I played in a pickup basketball game with some boys my age. They didn’t want me to, I could tell, but they were too chickenshit to keep me out. They played this finesse game, fancy dribbling and stuff like that. My style is to put my head down and go for the basket and everybody get the hell out of my way. I call a lot of fouls, too. Needless to say they weren’t real happy with my coming in and upsetting their little applecart. We played one game of twenty-one, then they picked up their ball and left. I didn’t have a ball of my own, so there wasn’t much point in sticking around there.
    By the time I wound up back at the obstacle course the sun was fading fast. It didn’t matter—I could run it blindfolded if I wanted to. I ran it hard, really attacking it, punishing it, running as hard and fast as I could until I ran out of gas and had to finally stop, bent over double, sucking in the air, my hands on my knees. It feels good, running hard like that, sucking in air so hard it feels like your lungs are burning.
    I ran it one more time. I didn’t much feel like it, but I did it anyway.

TWO
    I T WAS COLDER THAN shit out and snowing again. I couldn’t get a lift to save my life. I felt like some stray dog left out in the rain to fend for itself, like those dogs you see whose owners don’t want them anymore and just leave them by the side of the road, chuck them out of the car without even looking back. They come up to you with this begging kind of look, their tails between their raggedy legs, all dirty and matted up, kind of whimpering and whining, expecting you to kick them. That’s about how I felt right then.
    I don’t get rides as easy as I used to. I hit my growth spurt last year and put on a good four inches. I grew so fast I outgrew all my clothes; I looked like the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. It’s especially bad at night, when you’re standing out there in the dark on Defense Highway, ’cause the only light is when a headlight hits you from a car going by and by then it’s too late for them to stop. I don’t look like a kid anymore, that’s the problem. When I was a little kid, even last year, rides would come real easy, not only men drivers but women, too, they’d see this kid standing out there with his thumb sticking out, looking all forlorn like Little Orphan Annie, and they’d get feeling guilty and motherly and they’d pull over and take a look at me to make sure I wasn’t some midget ax murderer or something and then once I was in the car they’d ask where I was going and where I lived and did my parents know I was out by myself at