by Harry Mazer
In her column the next day, Bunny Fried devoted her whole column to Willis. She wrote about Willis as a jewel in the rough. “We have talent in our town that’s untapped. What’s a physical genius like Willis Pierce doing working in a factory? Think about that, Coach Wright.”
Forty-one
Miholic called Willis into the office. “There’s a phone call for you. From Dean Cummings’s office.”
“Who?”
“State University. They want to talk to you.”
“Me?” As if he didn’t know. The university was coming after him. They knew him, they knew where he lived, they knew where he worked. He’d broken their rules and now they were going to get theirs back. He didn’t know what they could do to him, but everything he thought of was bad.
On the phone, a woman said, “Mr. Pierce, this is Mrs. Byrd, Dean Cummings’s secretary. The dean would like to talk to you in his office. Could you come in today?”
“I work all day,” he said.
“How about late this afternoon? Is five o’clock all right for you?”
“Is five thirty all right?” That would give him time to go home and clean up.
When he walked into the dean’s office later that afternoon, there were three men waiting for him. It was a small office. The dean was behind his desk and the other two men were sitting against the wall, facing him. The only one he recognized was Coach Wright. None of them looked happy to see him.
The dean stood up and shook Willis’s hand. “Mr. Pierce. Sit down.”
The three of them sat in a line facing the dean. Willis put his hands in his pockets, then took them out, then finally sat with them clasped on his knee. He felt like he’d been called to the principal’s office.
“How old are you?” the dean asked.
“Nineteen.”
“When did you graduate high school?”
“Last year.”
“Were you a good student?”
“I was okay.”
The dean picked up a newspaper clipping from a folder on his desk. It had Willis’s name on it. “And you work in, ah …” He adjusted his glasses. “Here it is. Consolidated Conveyer, Spring Street division. Is that right?”
“Yes.” He wished the dean would get to the point. They were going to do something to him. Could they really put him in jail?
“What do you do there, Willis?”
“I’m in the shipping department.” He wiped his hands on his pants.
The man he didn’t know leaned toward him. “Willis! Okay if I call you Willis?” He had bushy eyebrows and sags under his eyes. “Are you really running sixty miles a week?”
“Pretty close.”
“Every week? You never slack off?”
Willis sat up uncomfortably. “I try not to.”
“What else?” the man said.
Willis told him about the hill training and the Nautilus and running at the air base. And all the time he felt like he was in first grade and being quizzed. Did he wash behind his ears this morning? Did he brush his teeth?
“Is there anything else?”
Willis shook his head.
Coach Wright didn’t say anything. The dean shuffled through the folder.
Here it comes, Willis thought.
The dean sat forward. “I think you know why you’re here, Mr. Pierce. The university doesn’t like the way you did things. We seriously considered taking legal steps. The university can’t run an organized sports program and allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to disrupt it at his own whim.” He paused.
Willis wondered if he should say something. “I—” He cleared his throat.
“What you did is a dangerous precedent. What are we going to do, let excited fans run onto the field and tackle the players? Grab the ball? Run with it?” His voice rose. “If we let you get away with it, is that going to be a green light for every young, hotheaded kid?”
“I’m sorry,” Willis said. It sounded lame. He didn’t believe in excuses, but what else could he say? He had done it. He couldn’t undo it. He hadn’t thought about any of this stuff. He hadn’t thought about anything but the race. Nothing. Nothing but running against Aaron Hill.
“There are ways to do things, and your way is not the right way.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Yes, I’m sure you are,” the dean said.
There was a pause. The dean looked at the other two men. “Would you like to start, Coach Wright?” the dean said.
Willis pulled himself up and sat rigidly. Here it comes, he thought. Here it comes.
“We’ve been talking about you,” Coach Wright said. The other man rubbed his hands together. They were all looking at Willis.
“We’re prepared to offer you a full athletic scholarship,” the coach said. “That would be tuition plus room and board and a small stipend.”
“We’ll expect you to enroll in the fall and start classes with everyone else,” the dean said.
Willis looked around. Was the coach laughing? There was a smile on the other man’s face. Was this some kind of weird joke? Why would they offer him a scholarship? There was a catch to it somewhere.
“It’s rare to run into someone with so much natural talent,” the dean said. “Isn’t that right, Coach Wright?”
“Don’t think it’s going to be easy,” the third man said. “You have to keep up with your classes. This is an honor and an opportunity. I went to this school. I graduated in fifty-two. You’re being given an opportunity, young man. It’s an honor. Don’t abuse it.”
“You say you train hard,” Coach Wright said. “I’m going to train you a lot harder. I’ll expect you out for every practice. And no excuses. And I want to talk to you sometime soon about starting training. We’re not waiting until next fall.”
Willis felt around for his cap. He missed it. Did they have it? Somehow the cap seemed realer than the offer. He wanted to ask for it, but the idea of asking for an old biking cap when they were offering him four years of college paralyzed him.
Four years of college. Free. Better than free, because they were going to let him run. He thought about running, wearing the uniform, belonging to the university. Running every day. Being on the same team with Bonner and Klein, the three of them racing each other. And maybe running against Hill again. Just the thought of it dried his mouth out.
Could he believe it? Had they really said that? Him in college? Nobody in his family had ever gone to college. He was the first one to even graduate high school. “I don’t have the money,” he said.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” the dean said. “It is a little sudden, I’m sure. It’s a full scholarship. It pays everything. Room, board, books, fees, everything. We even provide you with an allowance, a modest stipend.”
Could he do it? He wasn’t worried about the running, but was he smart enough? He thought about all the kids in high school, the brains, the ones who ran the school, the ones who went to college. The ones someone like him never hung out with.
The dean stood up. “You’re fortunate to have a gift. A gift is a blessing and a responsibility.”
“Young man,” the alumnus said, “don’t forget, if you’d lost that race, we wouldn’t be here talking to you.”
“Nothing succeeds like success,” the dean said, and he and the other men laughed.
Willis was still in a daze when he left. He walked out of the office and the moment he was out of the building he ran, flew down the street. Wait till Sophie hears this, he thought. She’ll never believe it! And then he remembered.
Forty-two
Monday he stayed home, waiting for Sophie. Tuesday he was famous. Wednesday, he was famous. Thursday, he got the college offer. Friday, he woke up with his eyes wet. Sophie.
Sophie again. And again.
And again, Sophie.
At work they had something new to talk about. Fourteen guys at Southern Cable had won the two-million-dollar lottery.
“They stayed with it for three years,” Wolpe said.
He tapped his head. “Smart! They knew they were going to win. They didn’t get discouraged. They hung in there and they won. Two million bucks. Is it worth a buck a week?” He was organizing a pool. “Okay, who wants in? Twelve guys, a buck a piece every week and we stay with it till it happens. And then we retire for life. How about it, big shot?” He turned to Willis. “Are you in?”
Willis gave him a dollar and walked away, looking for the machine foreman. There was a high metallic whine in the air and, behind it, the heavy thump of the presses. But in him, a silence, a stillness.
Sophie! How he missed her.
He was walking down the corridor on his break when he saw her. She was quite far away, standing in an open door in a shaft of light. He ran down the aisle, leaping over the skids. She was here! She had come looking for him. But when he got to the door, there was no one there. His imagination had played a trick on him, but all that day he kept expecting to see her. And thinking what he would say to her. How he would make up with her. Maybe he’d just open his arms.
At lunch, the guys were still talking about the lottery. Willis went through the paper. Not a word about him. Nobody came up to talk to him about the race. Nobody paid any attention to him. He’d been famous for two days.
He turned the page and read the personals.
Jason, please come back. You misunderstood. I said things I shouldn’t have said. Things I didn’t mean. Give me another chance. Your lover, Honeybee.
Young, strong and willing female desperately anxious to make up with particular beautiful male. You know who you are, My Little Popsicle.
Sugartoes: Somebody is sorry, sorry, sorry. Can’t sleep. Can’t eat. Can’t work. Life has lost its meaning without you. Pleading for another chance. Babeee, remember the good times.
He used to think that once you were famous, everything was right about your life. You didn’t have to worry anymore. You didn’t have to prove anything. You didn’t have to try to be anything. You were famous. It was like a place you wanted to go to. You just wanted to get there; it didn’t matter how. Being there was what mattered.
Well. Now he was there. Or had been there. He’d been famous for two days. And how did he feel? He felt like Willis Pierce, sitting on a box, eating his sandwich and feeling lonely, let down, sorry for himself. The college’s offer should have made him feel good, but it didn’t. He hadn’t told anybody about it. He didn’t have anyone to tell about it.
That night Willis drove over to Sophie’s house. He parked in front and sat there, looking up at her windows. There were two windows facing the parking lot and they were both dark. It was magic he was hoping for, sitting there and waiting for the light to come on.
After a while, he went in and up the stairs. Her door was locked. There were circulars jammed under the door. He stood in the dark hallway and knocked. “Sophie?” Softly at first, then louder. “Sophie. It’s me, Willis.”
He leaned his head against the door and imagined the personals he would slip, one by one, under her door.
Sophie, please come back. You misunderstood. I said things I shouldn’t have said. Things I didn’t mean. Give me another chance. Your Willy.
Young, strong and willing male desperately anxious to make up with special beautiful female in his life. Sophie, remember the good times?
Sweet Sophie Browne: Somebody is sorry, sorry, sorry. Can’t sleep. Can’t eat. Can’t work. Life has lost its meaning without you. Pleading for another chance. Sophie, you are the girl of my dreams.
Willis drove home down East Broadway. Passing Spring Street he drove by the closed stand. The shutters were down; the newsstand was padlocked for the night. He drove on. Sophie wasn’t here, she wasn’t at her apartment, she wasn’t anywhere in the city. And he didn’t want to be in the city, either.
He drove up Broad, then swung up onto the overpass and out onto 1-95, heading north. He was humming under his breath, one hand lightly on the wheel. It was dark and there were other cars on the road. He drove fast, concentrating on his driving, moving smoothly from one lane to another. He was just driving, enjoying himself.
Going for a ride, he said to himself.
It wasn’t till he passed Four Corners and crossed the river bridge that he admitted to himself that he was on his way to see Sophie.
Forty-three
Sophie’s feet were burning inside her rubber boots. She carried the milk for the cats into the barn, but she didn’t put on the lights. A storm was coming. As she filled the pan, the cats brushed up against her. She stood looking down the long central corridor of the barn to the square opening at the end. Wind, great scoops of air, spilled through the barn.
In the milk house, she hosed down the floor and wondered if Brenda was remembering to water her plants.
When she was done, she went outside and looked up the road. The sky was heavy and thick with clouds. Insects swarmed around the mercury light. There was a crack of lightning, and Jupiter started barking. Lightning and then thunder and then lightning again. In the flash, she saw a man standing in the road.
Willis’s car had broken down at a crossroad in the middle of empty, uninviting country. Not a sign, not a house. He and Zola had walked the rest of the way. As they came over the last rise, there was thunder and lightning, and he saw the farm, the sprawling, faded barns and the unfamiliar machinery. Then he saw Sophie.
He stopped. In the distance, she looked imposing, powerful and forbidding in her high black rubber boots.
A big fawn-colored dog was barking. Zola ran forward and the two dogs, the big dog and the little dog, circled each other and sniffed. A man came out of the house and went past Sophie into the barn.
Nothing was the way he’d imagined. Just getting to her, barely farther than crossing the road seemed impossible. Seemed harder than getting into the race. Than anything he’d ever done.
I don’t have to do this, Willis thought. I can leave right now, just turn around and go back home, not do this thing.
She hadn’t asked him to come. Did she want him? Did she want to hear anything he had to say? She hadn’t believed him before. Why would she believe him now? What could he say that he hadn’t said before? That he’d run the race? And a good race. What difference would that make to her? Everything about her said, keep your distance.
Zola saw Sophie and went crazy. She jumped up, her tail wagging and her mouth open, barking and laughing. Willis watched with envy. It was so easy for Zola. She was all feeling, all action. Her heart was like a spring that nothing could hold down.
Sophie was looking at him.
Then the rain started. Big, slow drops spattered in the road and fell on his head. He didn’t move. It was as if everything he wanted, everything he needed to do, everything he wanted to say was locked inside him and there was no door and there was no key and there was no way out.
He’d come all this way and there was only the width of the road separating them, and he couldn’t take another step. He looked at Sophie and then he looked back down the road the way he’d come and then he looked at Sophie again.
“Sophie,” he said. “Sophie. I—I’m so glad …” He held his hands out. “It’s raining,” he said.
“Hello, Willis,” she said.
“Hello, Sophie.”
“Where’s the car?”
“Broke down. It’s a miracle I got as far as I did.”
“Have you seen Brenda?”
“Once. She told me you were here.”
“I’m glad you brought Zola.”
He took a step toward her. “Are you glad I came?”
She nodded and moved toward him. It wasn’t what she intended to do at all. She had meant to be cool, very cool. When she had thought about this moment—and she had thought about it constantly—she had told herself she wasn’t going to let her feelings be pulled around, jerked this way and that way.
She’d been waiting for him, expecting him every day, sure he would come and just as sure she would never see him again. She kept rehearsing what she’
d say. It was always the same thing. He’d hurt her and she didn’t want to be hurt again.
Her brother came out of the barn and saw them. “It’s raining,” he said. He walked by them, and they went into the barn.
There was another crack of lightning and then a clap of thunder. A moment later the lights went out and it was black.
“Sophie?” Willis said. “Where are you?”
“I’m here.”
“Damn!”
She could hear him stamping his feet. “What happened, Willis?”
“I stepped in it,” he said. “Your cows! What do I do now.”
She found him and took his hand. “Come on.” He followed her to the milk room. “Take off your sneakers.” She dropped them into a pail of water. It was his bare feet that did her in. In the dark they seemed so pale and defenseless.
She took his hand and led him out of the wind to where the grain and the baled straw was stacked, and they sat down. “Are you cold?” She wrapped burlap around his feet.
“I was waiting for you to come back,” he said.
“I was waiting for you to come here.”
“I didn’t think you’d listen to anything I said.”
“I was mad at you for a long time,” she said. “I’m still mad at you.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“No … yes.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I left. I couldn’t live that way, hating you and thinking about you all the time.”
“I thought about you all the time, too.” He wanted to take her hand. He wanted to touch her. He ached to put his arms around her. “I missed you every day,” he said. “Every minute of every day.”
He thought about the park where he’d heard the music, and the race and after the race. He’d been looking for her, talking to her in his head, needing to talk to her. He wanted to say so much to her. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t going to be the way it was before. He’d changed. He was different. He was still Willis Pierce, but he was different.