thirty-five

Today is the big day of the super-lame, this-totally-sucks six-hundred-yard dash. Mr. Dushane, aka “Dush-nozzle” has made it pretty obvious this is do-or-die time for little old me.

He’s giving some speech about never giving up and he keeps looking over at me. Either he has tailor-made this speech for yours truly or he has a crush on me. But I doubt it. He’s always drooling over Jenny Schnittgrund. Guess he’s a sucker for too much mascara and orange skin.

Shelli doesn’t give a shit if she gets a B in this class, or a C or an F, for that matter. Her mom doesn’t care. Nothing matters because Christ is saving them all anyway so what’s the point? She might as well just sit at home eating bonbons and watching Hogan’s Heroes.

But not me. No.

I have to care.

I have to care because if I get a B in this class either the vampire will come and fetch me out of this school and send me to study under the Catholic Jesuits in a Romanian nunnery, or . . . or . . . I will be damned to a life eating Cheetos in a double-wide with a husband named Bubba and nine kids who look like extras in Mad Max. We’ll be poor but we’ll have love. And guns.

What Mr. Dushane is not counting on is my thespian abilities. This is my plan.

First, start out the race, seeming inspired by his heartwarming speech.

Second, near the four-hundred-yard mark, begin to pant, begin to lose faith, begin to doubt the existence of God.

Also, drool.

Drooling is not hard to do. All you have to do is think of a lemon.

Try it.

I’ll wait.

. . .

See. I told you.

Okay, third. The pièce de résistance.

While drooling, and swaying like a rookie on Mount Everest, running out of oxygen and wobbling around with altitude sickness . . . I will look up at Mr. Dushane.

I will look up at Mr. Dushane, because I know he will be looking over at me and wondering if his speech mattered or if the world is just a meaningless place consisting of an endless series of gestures signifying nothing.

I will hyperventilate.

I will practically fall to the ground.

I will cry.

But then . . . then, folks, I will look up at the you-can-do-it eyeballs of Mr. Dushane and I will be heartened, nay, inspired. I will suddenly feel a sense of power, hope, and the triumph of the human spirit. Glory will wash over me.

No, my legs will not give out!

Not here! Not now!

Not with Mr. Dushane and his dumb speech!

Today is the day that Mr. Dushane saved me!

Today is the day that Mr. Dushane changed a life.

Today is the day that Mr. Dushane mattered.

Except that, by the five hundredth yard . . . the one where the triumph of the human spirit has overtaken me, I hit the ground with a thud and black out.