Creative Writing from
Fairleigh Dickinson University

Excepts from

The Alarms of Life

Thomas C. Sabino

     When it was decided that day by the team that it would be best to start off with an “easy” run, I let out a sigh of relief. It wasn't so much that I was relieved that it would be an “easy” run, it was that my definition of easy differed from my teammates' definition of “easy.”
     I imagined “easy” to be me running two miles, gliding through the streets and hearing my teammates in the background whispering, “Where'd this kid come from? He's amazing! He does it so effortlessly!” Afterwards, there would still be time to head to McDonalds and grab a twenty - piece Chicken Mcnuggets. “Easy”, meant that I had time to eat after this “workout.” Not to mention it was a cloudy, crisp day. There was no such thing as humidity on a day like this. It made my job that much easier.
     In a very quick turn of events, I realized what their definition of “easy” was. Within three minutes of jogging down old Changebridge Road, my quadriceps began to shake uncontrollably and my lungs felt as if someone had punctured a hole in each one and poured steaming car exhaust down my throat; I thought my lungs would never stop being on fire. As I ran, tasting the salt from the beads of sweat that had dripped ino my mouth from my forehead, I could hear Hubert and Dave Shue talking about their math projects.
     I looked at Hubert and became very annoyed. He was such a puny character, the type of person that looked as if he'd be scared to fight a ten – year- old. His braces spewed saliva every time he said certain words, similar to how a volcano looks when it spews out fragments of molten lava. His calf muscles were shiny, looking as if somebody polished his legs before he went running. I couldn't even laugh at the thought though, since I was too tired to smile.
     “I think,” spewed Hubert, “that I'm going to do two math projects. One for a grade, and one just for the hell of it.” He laughed at this statement and hacked bubbly mucus on the street.
     Meanwhile, Tom King was eons behind all of us. In fact, I think the moment that we moved, Tom King had fallen behind us.
      “Hey, has anyone seen Tom King?” asked Jordan, his big beak moving up and down as he talked. Too tired to hear anyone's response, I heard my teammates laughing at something, most likely making fun at the pathetic running abilities of Tom King.
     Forgetting momentarily that my lungs were in flames, it occurred to me that I had never asked how many miles we were doing or even where we were going. I figured out at that point that we had to have gone at least seven, maybe eight miles.
     “Where are we going?” I blurted out, wheezing the September air in and out of my lungs at an extremely fast rate. Jordan looked at me as if I had transformed into some sort of monster -- the type you can hear breathing in horror movies, usually in a cave or behind a tree in some dark forest.
     “We're doing a Long Knoll,” he responded.
     “A Long Knoll?” I asked.
     “A Long Knoll,” said Hubert, acting as if him speaking clarified the issue.
     “What the fuck is a Long Knoll?” I asked, annoyed and hating Hubert.
     A momentary pause came between all of us. Hubert's eyes met Jordan's, and Jordan's met Dave Shue's. It was easy to tell that these “conversations” between their eyes suggested that I couldn't handle their workouts, nor would I be to handle what they were about to tell me.
     “Five and a half miles,” said Jordan, breaking the silence. “We take the long way to the Knoll golf course. So far, we've done about two miles.”
     “Oh, ok. That's what I thought,” I said, completely lying. I debated right there whether or not to just stop running and hitch a ride from a passing driver. But I knew I couldn't let them win. This wasn't so much about me wanting to run anymore, it was about me proving to them that I could. Besides, I could see the headlines: “PUSSY RUNNER DROPS OUT FROM RUN AND HITCHES FATAL RIDE WITH SERIAL KILLER.” It would figure that something like that would happen to me. I've always had a knack for being caught up in elaborate situations, so why shouldn't my death be any different?
     But with my head pounding, and beads of lukewarm, salty sweat now stinging my eyes, I figured it would be best to avoid talking for as long as possible and shift my attention to something else – anything else – that would get my mind off of the exhaustion. It was then that two squirrels playing in the front yard of an older looking wooden house caught my attention.
     It seemed like a scene on a Hallmark card: an old wooden house, a swing on an oak tree, two steps leading up to a creaky wooden porch, two little squirrels, and a hammock hanging between two trees in the distance. I figured that any moment now, an old woman would appear with an apron, holding a pitcher of yellow lemonade, and an old man on the hammock would shout, “Over hear, Martha!” She would walk over to him, pour his lemonade, and they would both turn and smile for the camera. Hence, the picture on front of the Hallmark card.
     One squirrel, which was dark gray and quick as a lightning bolt, seemed to be teasing the other smaller gray squirrel. The large one would brush past the other one's tail, and when the smaller one would look to see where the large one was, it seemed painfully unable to find him. It would run back and forth the dusty old lawn, frantically moving its head back and forth, knowing the larger one was around, but not knowing exactly where. Meanwhile, the larger one would be at the top of a tree, squeaking, almost taunting the smaller squirrel.
     I didn't quite understand the point of their game, nor did I think I fully should have. Their game seemed to be similar to the way I might tease my younger sister, but who knows?
     It was these two squirrels that eventually helped to drift me off into another world, which I tend to do often. In these worlds, I took certain situations and made questions out why the situations were happening. It could be anything, really. Nine times out of ten, these questions were completely ridiculous, and didn't seem to solve anything in my life, but I would only realize this after I had wasted my time thinking about the answer to the damn questions!
     In this particular case, I asked myself if we were meant to understand animals fully. First off, who was I to analyze their game? Their actions had made me assume that what they were doing was a game. It sure looked like a classic game of Hide and Go Seek, but how do I know the two little guys didn't meet beforehand, and discuss, in their own language, what they were doing? How do I know that the name of what they were doing wasn't really “Hide N' Seek,” but rather it was, “I Hate Your Fucking Guts, Stay The Hell Away From Me! ”
     Looking back, it's an insane thought. But really, how do we – or how will we – ever understand their language? Biologically we may understand them, but that's really it. During this conversation with myself, I concluded two things. First, we weren't meant to understand animals (beyond biologically). And second, it was stupid on my part to even assume that they were playing a game. What if they hated each other? How would we (or I) know?
     I didn't say another word for the rest of that run. It was only until we arrived back at the high school that I had even realized I was still with the rest of my teammates.
     I was slightly out of breath, coughing what seemed to pieces of bubbling Styrofoam in my throat. I kept on sniffling to avoid snot from dripping onto the ground. My legs felt as if someone had placed clamps onto my quadriceps and tightened them as hard as they could. My calf muscles shook non – stop and unrelenting, the way a persons body might shake when standing outside Times Square on New Years Eve in the angry, biting January air.
     It was during the post – workout stretches that it suddenly hit me that two squirrels had helped me to forget about the pain of running. Two fucking squirrels! I smiled, and shook my head laughing at the thought. I wondered if poor Tom King had seen the squirrels, or if perhaps he had focused on some other critters or objects to help him in his undoubtedly exhausting journey. I glanced around at my teammates, who seemed to be not as tired as me, but tired nonetheless.
     Hands on his knees, panting slightly, I saw Hubert. His greasy, jet black hair was slightly messed up, and he was hocking up saliva again. I never saw anyone with so much god damn saliva! Pulling his right leg towards his back I saw him look at me. Although we said nothing to each other, the conversation between our eyes was clear.
     “That's right, mother fucker!” my eyes shouted at him. “I made it. I fucking made it! ” I glared at him, nodding my head up and down. My left eye was wide open. My right was nearly shut. I must have looked possessed to anyone else watching, but I knew Hubert knew better.
     “I know. You did make it,” his tiny Asian eyes answered me back, blinking four quick times at me. “Good job.”
     With that, he nodded at me, and sped up the concrete stairs to the locker room.

5. Two Criminals by the River

     For the rest of the year – and the rest of high school, for that matter – running would come much easier for me. I slowly understood that to run, and run successfully, you cannot even think about how tired you are. Or you could always just look for two squirrels. Otherwise, a casual run could turn into five miles of sheer hell. In addition to this, Hubert used to say, “The key to running with any kind of success is to eat healthy, get good amounts of sleep at night, and run with a partner who will motivate you.”
     And while I wouldn't argue one bit with what he said, I also knew there was a side of him that believed that in training this way, one can not have fun. Running was not fun to Hubert. I could imagine Hubert using a saying like, “Only the foolish have fun,” or something along those lines. But it was my belief that a person could have fun anywhere, anytime, and in any situation if they wanted to, and still get meaningful work done. Somehow, I began to believe that not only could I train as well as Hubert and my teammates, but I could also loosen them up (specifically Hubert).
     It was Georgine who first suggested that the boys and girls' teams stretch together before going on our daily workouts, for two important reasons. One, Georgine and I could act like asses together, joking around with one another, and making fun of our teammates together. Two, I began to wonder if not only certain teammates, but the entire boys team (except for Tom King) was gay, since I never heard them talk about sex, girls, or the combination of the two.
     Coach Philhower (“Mr. Phil” to us), who coached both the boys and the girls cross country teams had no problem with us stretching together, as it saved him the energy of walking back and forth between the teams to tell them what workout to do on that day.
     Mr. Phil was a funny man. His curly gray hair completely contrasted the all yellow running suit that he wore (the banana suit as we called it). Combine that “look” with his womanly smile, sloping red nose, gray track shoes, and big dimples, and one might even suspect that Mr. Phil himself was gay too. In any case, he was happy about the idea of the teams stretching together, as it gave us “common unity” he said, whatever the hell that meant!
     So, from the moment the two teams started stretching together, things began to get better. I no longer doubted the sexuality of my teammates, which was a good thing. I could finally run harder than usual, as I didn't have to worry about having teammates behind me during workouts, wondering if they were tired, or if they were purposely “tired” just to stare at my ass as I ran. I was also starting to earn respect from my teammates, when they saw that I was running with less effort each day. In general, no problems.
     It was three days before our first cross country meet when I finally did run into a slight problem. That September morning, there was a torrential downpour that started at about five o' clock that morning. The rain was so peaceful, lightly plopping on my windowsill, and the birds squawking every few moments made think that I should tape the sounds and play them at night on my stereo just to help me sleep at night. The occasional growling of thunder was interjected with momentary flashes of lightning, creating a perfect setting for sleep. The clouds, gray and hazy that morning, seemed to ooze into the walls and corners of my bedroom, which might even trick someone into thinking it wasn't morning if there were no clock in the room.
     Problem was, there was a clock – an alarm clock, no less. The Clock of Death blurted out its daily “EEE EEE EEE!!” that morning, just as I was in the midst of an intense, motivating dream.
     In the dream, I was running with Hubert, on a track, toe to toe, nose to nose. I wasn't outside, I wasn't inside, I was just on a track. I was pretty sure that we were racing. There were people around, watching, cheering for one of us to win. Mr. Phil was screaming at us to “GO!” Tom King was there. Georgine was there. I was coming down the last straightaway on the track, about four hundred meters left in the race, wanting – needing – to beat Hubert. I wasn't sure what the reward was for winning, but I knew there was one, because everyone was screaming. I was sweating all over the place – the track had the distinctive, foul odor of sweat -- and I could feel my body twitching with anticipation, wanting to know what this reward was!
     But the Clock of Death ruined the ending. When that piece of shit clock screeched into my ear, suddenly, cruelly, and unfairly, I tore the cord out of the wall, and taking a track shoe, slapped the clock over and over with the shoe, as if it were some gigantic mosquito that wouldn't die.
     I didn't care about attending school at that moment. I tried to go back to sleep, with thoughts of that race in my head, but not only could I not sleep, I couldn't and wouldn't ever figure out the ending to the dream. The rain now seemed like a cruel and wet annoyance, and the thunder and lightning made me just want to sink into a dark hole in my mattress and never come out. Sulking, I decided, would be the best thing to do right then.
     Sulking, was why I was late for school that morning. Sulking is why my mother screamed at me to “Get up NOW and go to school!” Sulking was why I got detention for being late. And sulking is why I was forced to skip practice with the team that day, and run by myself – or so I thought.
     
     The final bell rang that day, and running was the last thing that I wanted to do. Sitting in detention, I watched as my teammates ran by the window a blur of colors and heights, their feet trampling the dirt like horse hooves.
     “Forty – five minutes of this shit?” I said to myself aloud. An obese, moose of a kid, named Jefferson, sat to my right. Turning eagerly, Jefferson and his fat chin whispered to me, “Hey..Sabino, listen.” With that, he released a loud fart, that sounded like a whoopee cushion, and the delinquents in detention burst into laughter. I, however wasn't laughing. I just wanted to run, and go home to sleep, to see if I could figure out the end of my dream.
     When the bell rang, and detention was finally over, I walked, with my right hand rubbing my temples, and my left hand rubbing my eyes, debating whether or not to even bother running. As I walked towards a water fountain, I heard a voice shout, “Hey, punk!”
     Irritated and startled, I looked up to see Hubert's mouth of metal cackling with laughter. I told him that I had been in detention, and he told me that he had been at a Math Club meeting, and he convinced me that we should do our run together that day.
     Getting dressed in the locker room, I realized that the smell had gotten worse with each passing day. The odor had graduated from dirty armpits and sweat to an odor that smelled like dirty socks mixed with old milk. I was actually amazed at how horrible the smell was. Was it really that possible that humans could smell this bad?
     Changing into my black New York Mets t – shirt, I asked Hubert what the hell a Math Club was, anyway. He said that it was a club where they (I don't know who the “they” referred to, but I assumed they had to be complete losers) did math equations and practiced writing and solving their own equations. I winced at the thought of writing my own equations, but more, I winced at the fact that this was the type of kid that I called my “teammate.” In hearing his answer, I let out a meek “Oh.”
     Hubert told me that we should “take it easy” that day and do a Short Knoll, which was a mile shorter than a Long Knoll. After we had stretched and Hubert hacked all of his annoying bodily fluids out of his mouth and nostrils, we saw that the girls team was just getting ready for practice on the track outside the high school.
     Georgine saw Hubert and I run by, and with that, she shouted, “Aww, isn't that cute?” The girls erupted in laughter. I shot my middle finger in the air at her, and I heard Mr. Philhower shout, “Tom, that's not nice!”
     “Sometimes I think he must be gay! 'Tom that's'not nice,'” I said to Hubert, mocking Mr. Phil's voice, but he was too busy running to give a response.
     As we ran down a long hill, I realized that I was not going to finish this run. Not only was I pissed off about my dream, but my legs were really sore from overexertion. I had logged about thirty miles in the previous week, and had been consistently running five or six miles a day this week. In fact, going down this hill was making me tired. That isn't supposed to happen.
     At the end of the hill, I stopped, dead in my tracks. I decided that my day was over, at least as far as running was concerned. With his hands on his hips, Hubert walked towards me, with a look of confusion.
     “I'm not going anymore,” I said to him.
     “Ok, why?” he replied.
     “'Cause I'm just not!”
     “Well what are you going to do?” he asked.
     “Take the shortcut back,” I replied in a tone that suggested to him that he should know what “shortcut” I was talking about. “You know, you should come with me. Fuck this run today. We have a meet in a couple of days anyway.”
     To my astonishment, “Ok,” was Hubert's one – word answer. No fight, no questioning of my dedication, nothing. He simply said, “ok.”
     I could not believe that he had agreed to cut short a run. I thought that that was against his Runner's 10 Commandments, which I'm sure that Hubert would have written. In fact, when I later told Tom King that Hubert had cut the run with me, we joked that we had thought Hubert would be laid first before ever cutting a run short.
     I panicked, thinking of where this “shortcut” would be, and how we would use it. It occurred to me that I didn't even know why I had mentioned a shortcut, when I could have just told him that I was going to turn around and jog back to the high school.
     But it was too late to say that now. I finally had Hubert where I wanted him – willing to be “deviant” and willing to be under my control. I don't know why he agreed, but I didn't want to wait too long and give him a reason to change his mind. I looked at the river that was next to the sidewalk in front of me.
     Though we called it a “river” it was really more like a deep stream. In fact, you could probably just barely sail a raft in the water. On the other side of the river was a golf course, and I could see five old men cluelessly hitting golf balls all over the shiny green grass. Some of the men must have been horrendous players, because there were golf balls at the bottom of the river, stuck between rocks, and covered in moss.
     In any case, that river was the only thing in front of me at the moment, so while Hubert awaited my answer, I finally coughed up an answer.
      “Let's go through the river,” I blurted.
      “The river? How is that a short – cut?” asked Hubert, confused.
      “Well,” I said. “It's not, really. But it is. It's here. Let's use it.”
      “I still don't get it,” he replied, with a look of worry on his face. Leave it to Hubert to be logical!       “There's nothing to get!” I shouted. “Now just follow me!”
     With that, I waded right into the middle of the water, fully clothed, with my black T – shirt and track shoes on. The water felt crisp, and frigid, and actually felt pretty soothing on my rickety knees. The balls of my feet stopped pounding, and my body seemed grateful for my mischievous behavior. The small amount of sweat that was on my cheeks instantly dried up, turning into starchy, white sweat stains.
     Hubert waded into the water much slower than I had. He had a sort of method to his walking. He walked with his hands held high into the air, his hands curled in towards his head, and his silvery, metallic mouth wide open, resembling something out of a Hellraiser movie. He let out sounds like “Arrghhhh!” and “Ahhhhhhh ya ya ya!” spraying saliva all the while.
     Once Hubert was finally immersed in the water, I cupped my hands with the dirty brown water, and threw it on his face.
     Cackling with laughter, Hubert pushed some water on to my chest.
     It was I who first took off my shoes and socks. I figured the shoes were soaked anyway, so why not use them as instruments for gathering and pouring water on Hubert? The slimy rocks on the bottom of the river gave me the shivers, similar to the way one might shiver when a spider walks onto his or her face. They seemed to have a hairy texture to them, and I warned Hubert not to take off his shoes for these reasons.
     But he would have none of it.
     “Bullshit!” he shouted. “You just don't want me to throw my shitty water all over you with my shoes!” He reached underwater, his face partially immersed, and began to pull of his shoes and socks.
     Having two sisters, I know what a womanly shriek sounds like. I had hung my younger sister's baby dolls off of the attic rope in my hallway, and I had also spilled fruit punch on my older sister's white blouses, both resulting in admirable shriekness levels. But never had I – or would I – hear anyone shriek like Hubert did that day when he took off his shoes in the river.
     “EEEEEEEEEEE -- IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”
     If that sound wasn't enough to break panes of glass, then I'm sure that the old men golfers must have thought that I had been raping someone in the middle of that river. That shriek, actually made me appreciate the Clock of Death! Thank God I didn't have to hear a sound like that in the morning!
     After shrieking like a little girl, Hubert suddenly bolted out of the river and dove head – first onto the sidewalk, panting and with each heavy breath saying, “Oh thank God…Oh thank God…”      I must have repeated thirty times, “what happened?”, “what happened?”..He later swore to me that, “something was down there! It had to have been a snake! It crawled up my leg! It felt it all slithery and slimy…”
     Though I didn't believe him, I said I did. And dripping wet with “river water”, Hubert and I decided it would be best to simply walk back to the high school.
      “Where the hell did you two assholes go running? A pool?”
     Hubert and I had assumed that we would be confronted at some point by someone associated with the high school, be it student or teacher, asking why we were literally dripping wet. It just so happened that Georgine and her friend Leigh saw us first when we got back.
     “Ok,” said Georgine. “Where did you go swimming and why? Why the fuck are you all wet? I wanna try! Tell me where!”
     But instead of simply telling her what we did, Hubert was the one who said it first, and I couldn't believe it.
     “We didn't go swimming,” he said calmly. “We were thrown into the river.”
     At that moment, I was as puzzled as Leigh, who asked the question I had wanted to ask Hubert. “Thrown? Thrown by who?” asked Leigh, her blue eyes bulging out of her elongated, horse – like face. Tom King and I liked to call Leigh “the horse”, because her body was lanky and drawn out, while her chin was so long that it looked like the snout of a horse. She had the annoying habit of always biting on her lower lip, sticking her front two teeth out of her mouth. For this annoying habit, I always disliked Leigh.
     I believed Hubert when he later told me that he had every intention of telling Georgine and Leigh what had really happened. After all, Hubert was laughing the whole time that he was saying we had been thrown into the river. But apparently, Georgine and Leigh ignored his laughter as he told his story, and instantly believed him. Somehow, I had been dragged into Hubert's little story – which, to be honest, I didn't mind anyway – and the two of us just went with it.
     “Well,” Leigh said to me. “Who threw you in?”
     “Two men,” I said.
     “Two men? Why? Who the hell were they?”
     “Well, I think they were just messing with us for no reason. They probably saw us, and decided to throw two puny runners into the river for kicks.”
     Hubert nodded in agreement. He was overdoing the nodding. I could tell BSing wasn't something he was used to, nor was he very good at it, either.
     “Bullshit,” said Georgine, who had been pretty quiet during our whole story. “I don't believe this for a second.” Turning to Leigh, she nodded up and down and said, “This,” she said, “is definitely a classic Sabino bullshit story.”
     With Mr. Phil walking up from the track, Hubert and I decided to just stick to the story, even if Georgine knew better. When we explained the story to him, Mr. Phil, to our disbelief, decided to call in the local authorities. And it was just too late to turn back now and tell them the whole thing was a lie.
     Together, Hubert and I told our story; we had been innocently running together, by the river, when a white van pulled up from out of nowhere, and out hopped two bearded men. One man was named Jesse, because we heard the driver call the passenger this. Anyway, Jesse (he, by the way, wore a Metallica shirt and sunglasses) and his buddy ran up from behind us, wrapped their huge arms around us, and dragged us down the small hill that lead to the river, and woosh! The whole time, they kept saying, “Shut up boys. Shut up, or next time we'll throw you into the sewer plant up the road!” They threw us in, wickedly laughed at us, and drove off.
     “And that's what happened,” said Hubert, to the police officer, who scribbled down notes in his little pad. Everyone but Georgine believed us. I don't think there was anything I could past her! In any case, even though I knew she knew we were lying, we never, ever admitted to her what had really happened. To this day, I haven't admitted it to her, nor do I think I will.
      As for Hubert, for whatever reason, he and I became great friends that day. I had already earned his respect before the first track meet. Already, I was the third best runner on the team, behind only him and Orest, and I had only been running for a few weeks. He saw that I worked hard, and that although I had originally called Cross Country, running, and my teammates a joke, I had changed my attitude quickly. Although I had originally dismissed Georgine's idea that “running would be good for me,” I was now as competitive as anyone about it. Hubert told me after graduation that he knew that I was a “fuck – up, but at least I was a fuck – up who actually cared about running.”
     It had never seemed possible, but instead of drinking coffee and eating Doritos in my basement with Tom King, I had now gotten to the point where I would rather go out on a cool autumn day, and run. There was a tranquility that came with running; watching the red, green, and yellow leaves from the trees flicker onto the ground could make one feel almost blissful. The fresh air that Tom King and I had ignored for so long, was now an invited guest into my lungs – well, our, lungs. I had quickly learned that when you run, you see things that you never, ever, paid attention to before. Tree stumps, squirrels, deer, trees, garbage, mud, gravel, playgrounds, children, chickens, the sky, the sun – some of the most basic things in life. Everything is enlarged when you run. That is to say, you can't just zip past these things like you normally do in a car; you can run fast, but never fast enough to ignore these details. You taste, smell, hear, and feel these things when you run, down to the most miniscule little detail. A tree becomes a red – leafed tree. The squirrel becomes the spotted gray squirrel. The garbage dumpster becomes that shitty smelling green dumpster.
     With running, there was a sense of urgency, I learned. Although I had teammates that I trained with and relied on during track meets, the only true “teammate” I had was myself. Pride and competitiveness were driving factors. It was I who determined my fate in this sport, and nobody else. No pitcher to strike me out. No goalie to stop me. No linesman to tackle me. No center to block me as I drive into the lane. Just me. There was nobody to blame but myself if I had a bad run. Running makes you accept responsibility for your actions. In the end, as running taught me, the only one to blame for your successes or failures is yourself. But perhaps more than anything, running gives one a sense of accomplishment. “You feel like you've accomplished something in your life when you finish a five mile run,” Tom King would say to me, frantically panting like a thirsty dog. Mr. Phil used to say sometimes, “Forget about the time you run a mile in. Just appreciate the fact that you can do it. Most people are afraid to do it.” And he was right.
     Running, I learned was an appreciation of life – of your own life, and of life around you.
     
     For Hubert, he had already earned my respect for simply being a great runner. But I don't think he ever knew that. I believe, that he went out of his way to show me that he could have fun, just like me. He didn't care about acting stupid or missing a run, which I never thought he would do. Maybe Hubert had looked to gain my respect just so he could have another personal accomplishment added to his belt. As it was, he pretty much already accomplished things that most people dream of – tremendous grades, tremendous running ability, and a tremendous future. Who knows? Maybe Hubert considered “the river incident” a huge accomplishment in his life, since everything else seemed to come so easy for him. Throughout the four years I ran, I watched everybody enjoy their sense of accomplishment at some point. Georgine was not satisfied until she could run a mile in under six minutes. She did, in the second – to – last track meet of her senior year. Tom Kings accomplishment was not only running a cross country race in under twenty minutes, but losing thirty pounds of Doritos off his belly in the process. Hubert's accomplishment would be running at the State Championships and finishing second in the two – mile run. I wasn't too sure what some of my teammates' accomplishments were, but in the end, they always seemed content with their results.
     For me, there would only be one thing to satisfy my hunger. I desperately wanted to beat the man himself, Hubert, in one race. Just one.
     Hubert always won his races. And I was always second or third, not too far behind him, but far enough. The more I ran with Hubert, I kept learning, the chances of beating him in a race looked next to impossible.