STEP BACK

THE END OF FEBRUARY TURNS INTO THE BEGINNING OF MARCH. We’re back to our schedule with a week to go till the slam. Luis acts like the whole running-off thing never happened. He’s only thinking about the here and now.

“I got an idea,” he says. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m totally digging the wall strategy. But there’s not gonna be a wall in front of your face in Cassidy’s class.”

“I know that.”

“So maybe you could try stepping back a few inches each time we do the poem. Step back and pretend you’re taking the wall with you.”

We go through it a few times. Pretty soon I’m a couple feet away from the wall and I start to get nervous. I put my hand in my pocket. Tex Johnson’s knob is in there. I put it in my fist and hold it while I’m saying the poem.

“What’s in your hand?”

“A knob.”

I tell him Bill’s story.

“That’s fucking cool.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re holding a piece of history.”

“Yeah.”

As we practice the next few nights, I hold the knob tighter with each step I take from the wall.

When I head off for home after practices, Luis is like, “Read and reread that third stanza” or “Practice those lines so you can say ’em like you mean ’em.”

It seems so important to Luis. So when I get home, I charge through the front door, ignore Gilbert’s “greeting,” head into my room and work my butt off … farther and farther away from the wall.

When I need a break or I can’t sleep, I go to work on Gilbert.

I put my face right up to his and try my hardest to sound pleasant. Hello, Sam. Hello, Sam. Hello, Sam.

Then I go back to my room and Gilbert screeches, “GOOD-BYE, SAM!”

I don’t care.

It feels good to try.