The Essay A Novel (15 page)

Of course, I knew Miss Singletary would never do anything like that. I was more angry at my own ignorance than at her, but at seventeen, it is sometimes difficult to accept responsibility for your own missteps.

I washed each leg from the ankle up, rubbing the soap against the grain of my leg hair. I ran the bar over my face, then stood under the pounding water and watched the white lather snake toward the brass drain. I repeated the process, and when the lather had rinsed from my eyes, I could see Coach Battershell standing in the opening to the shower. “Don't wash the skin off,” he said.

“I won't.”

“Stop by my office before you leave.”

“Why?”

His brows arched, surprised at the answer. “Because I said so.” He left before I could respond. After drying off, I stuffed the towel into the duffel bag and pulled my blue jeans over damp skin. The underwear had gone in the duffel bag, so I covered myself with one hand and carefully zipped up my jeans with the other. The locker room had cleared out by the time I walked into Coach Battershell's office. His feet were crossed at the ankles and resting on the corner of his desk when I rapped twice and walked in. He didn't look up from the playbook he was flipping through, but pointed at a chair with his pencil. “Have a seat, Jimmy Lee.” Without looking up he added, “Shut the door.” I pulled it closed behind me, dropped the duffel bag and eased down on the plastic chair, waiting for his eyes to leave the playbook. “Rough day at school?” he asked.

“Not particularly.”

His brows arched as he finally lifted his eyes. “It looked to me like you were taking out some frustration on the freshman. Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

He nodded, his eyes focused on the eraser end of the pencil he was tapping on the desk. “Are you upset with Miss Singletary.”

“Why would I be upset with Miss Singletary?”

“Don't play coy with me, Jimmy Lee.” I folded my arms and looked away. “Do you think that conversation the two of you had was easy for her?”

“How'd you know about it?”

“She talked to me about it first. She was nervous about approaching you and wanted to know how I thought you would take it.”

“What did you say?”

“The first thing I told her was that she had more guts than I did. I also told her you'd take it like a man. Of course, given your display of temper at practice, now I'm not so sure.”

“It's football. I thought we were supposed to hit.”

He ignored my comment. “Let me ask you a question, Jimmy Lee, and I want you to really think about it. When was the last time you had someone, anyone, climb out on a limb for you the way Miss Singletary has with this essay contest?”

“You did.”

He shook his head. “No, I didn't. I'm just your football coach. I like you and I care about you, Jimmy Lee, but I haven't had to risk anything by putting you in a game. Anyone who watches can see you're a hell of a football player. I don't need to convince people of that. They'd think I was an idiot if I didn't play you. But as far as I can see, there's only one person in the whole school who believes you wrote that essay and believes it enough that she's willing to back you up.”

“I never asked her to do that.”

“Really? Do you think you could be any more ungrateful?” His tone turned harsh, as when a player missed an assignment on a critical play. “She wants you to succeed and she doesn't want you to embarrass yourself. There's not another teacher in this school who would have had that conversation with you. She's got your back and all you can do is whine about it?”

“The only reason I entered that stupid essay contest was to show Miss Singletary that I could write. I wanted to show her that she didn't need to worry about passing me out of junior English. Before that writing contest, everyone looked at me and told me how good I was at football. Now all anyone is talking about is me being a cheater. I wish hadn't even tried at that essay contest. What do I need it for, anyway? You said maybe I could get a scholarship to play football.”

“Your life in football is finite. Do you understand what that means?” I didn't, and shook my head. “There's an end to playing football. Sometimes it ends after high school. If you're fortunate it ends after college. If you're very, very fortunate, it ends after the pros. But it ends for everybody, and the number of years you get to play are pretty insignificant in relationship to your entire life. When the day comes that you can't play football anymore, what are you going to do?” I looked blankly at him. “It's not a rhetorical question. What are you going to do?”

“I don't know. I haven't thought that much about it.”

“You better start. Miss Singletary says you have talent. Use it, son.” I looked away, feeling very much the scolded child. “And, as long as we're on this subject, I want to tell you something, but it doesn't leave the room. Understand?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“You be damn careful how you act around Mrs. Johanessen.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. Be careful. She's a snake, and she'll do anything she can to trip you up before that writing competition. She catches you doing anything that could be construed as improper or a violation of school rules, she'll try to get you suspended. Did you know that she had planned a celebration for Catherine the evening you upset the apple cart and won that contest?” I did not and shook my head. He couldn't hide a smirk. “She thought it was a lock and had invited a raft of family and friends, including a few teachers, to her house for a party. Then you trimmed her sails, so she'll be gunning for you, trying to find a way to get her kid into the county competition. She's got a strong ally in Mr. Speer, so don't give her any ammunition.”

“I won't.”

Mrs. Johanessen was a dour woman who thought life had wronged her by planting her firmly in the middle of Ohio's Appalachian hills. She had moved to Vinton County from Cincinnati after her halitosic dentist husband bought Doc Verzella's practice in McArthur. She was openly disparaging of the locals and longed for the life of culture and entitlement that she believed had been her destiny when she married Ralph Johanessen in his third year of dental school. Stories abound at East Vinton High that Mrs. Johanessen had a wild side and had rebelled against her husband for dragging her to the hills by having a series of affairs, one of which was rumored to be with Principal Speer. Mrs. Johanessen rarely smiled, wore her hair in a bun so tight it seemed to stretch the corners of her eyes, and wore loose-fitting skirts in a vain attempt to hide her spreading rear end. From my perspective, it seemed almost beyond comprehension that someone could find her desirable.

Behind her back, Mrs. Johanessen was known as “the chess master,” for the way she orchestrated Catherine's every move. There were those in Vinton County who said Mrs. Johanessen had a near maniacal obsession with her daughter and lived vicariously through her achievements. Those less kind said that her love for her daughter was conditional upon those achievements, and that she worked Catherine like an expert puppeteer.

When Catherine was in elementary school, Mrs. Johanessen carted her throughout the Midwest to compete in beauty pageants. During show-and-tell in those early years, Catherine was forever bringing in a sash for being the Pumpkin Festival Princess, or a tiara for being Little Miss Zucchini Festival, or a trophy proclaiming her Miss Tiny Tomato Queen. On the playground after one such demonstration, Kip Fillinger put one hand on his hip, one behind his head and while shaking his butt said, “Look at me, I'm a beauty queen,” and then made fart sounds with each wiggle of his rear. Catherine burst into tears and ran inside. Of course, Mrs. Johanessen made a visit to the elementary school the next day, and Mrs. MacIntyre gave us a talk about not being cruel to our classmates on the playground, though she could barely do it with a straight face.

Mrs. Johanessen became the cheerleading advisor at the high school when Catherine was in junior high just so she could hold the position and ensure that her daughter spent four years cheering on the varsity. After carting Catherine off to Athens for two years of private tennis lessons from the Ohio University women's coach, Mrs. Johanessen organized a tennis tournament at the Vinton County Country Club, such as it was, with a nine-hole golf course, two tennis courts and a swimming pool so small it was called the bird-bath. The tournament pitted Catherine against a half-dozen girls who barely knew which end of the racket to hold. She won the tournament three years in a row, for which her mother presented her with a trophy the size of a small car and had an article placed in the
Vinton County Messenger
that would have made you think she had won the U.S. Open.

Mrs. Johanessen worked diligently to raise a spoiled, entitled brat, and that's what she ended up with. Given her history, it was not beyond my comprehension to believe she might try to blindside me prior to the county essay competition.

Chapter Twelve

M

y shirt was a tad too small through the chest and it was cutting at my armpits. Mom had bought it at the Volunteers of America Thrift Store in Chillicothe the previous winter for my great-uncle Chester's funeral. It was a little thin at the elbows, but it was washed and pressed. The slacks were black and, I think, made of nylon. They came from the same thrift store and like the shirt, were a little snug. I had polished my belt and my only pair of black shoes. The scent of the antiperspirant was noticeable to me and I sensed that I had put on too much.

When I walked into Miss Singletary's classroom for my tutoring session, she looked up briefly, then back to the paper she was grading. “I'm sorry, sir, but I have a tutoring session this period and simply don't have time for a parent-teacher conference at this moment.” She looked up again and feigned surprise. “Why, as I live and breathe, Jimmy Lee Hickam. I didn't recognize you all dressed up.”

My lips quivered as I unsuccessfully tried to suppress a grin. “It's from the second-hand store in Chillicothe. I got it for my uncle's funeral.”

“It looks nice,” she said. She sounded sincere. She crossed her arms and smiled. “I'm proud of you, Jimmy Lee. This is a big step. Is that cologne I smell?”

“No, ma'am. Deodorant. I used too much.”

“You'll get the hang of it.”

“I've decided I want to get the new clothes you talked about yesterday.”

“All right. I'll work on that.”

“Good. Before we get started, I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“I was talking to Coach Battershell last night and he said you told him I have a real talent for writing.”

“I never told Coach Battershell that you had talent.” The prickly heat of embarrassment crept up my neck. “A lot of kids in this school have talent, Jimmy Lee. I told Coach Battershell that you have a gift. There's a difference. I've been reading your essays for a week. They're excellent. You have a gift for visualizing a scene and recreating it on paper. There are a lot of good writers out there, but very few have the sensitivity to be able to completely pull a reader into their stories. You have that. A gifted painter doesn't need someone to explain perspective to him. He sees it in his mind's eye and the results come out the end of his brush. I told Coach Battershell that you have that kind of gift with words.” She leaned closer to me. “It's the same message I've been trying to get you to understand. It's a gift. Use it.”

For a long moment, I considered what she had said, chewing at my lip and avoiding her stare. “But what could I do with it?”

“The opportunities are endless, Jimmy Lee. You could write for a newspaper or a magazine. Have you been to the library? There are thousands of books on the shelves, many of them written by people a lot less talented than you.”

“You think I could write books?”

“I think you can do anything you want, Jimmy Lee. You just have to use the gift that God gave you.”

“How do I do that?”

Miss Singletary leaned back in her chair; she smiled and her green eyes danced. “Is it that difficult of a question to ask?”

“Ma'am?”

“Does going to college seem like such an unachievable goal that you can't even ask me the question?”

“College sure seems like a long way from Red Dog Road, yes, ma'am.”

“Do you want to go to college?”

I shrugged. “Last year, when Coach Battershell said I might get a scholarship if I kept improving in football, I thought it was just talk. I never really thought I could go to college. I always figured college was for kids a lot smarter and, you know, better than me. Now, I'm wondering if maybe I could do it. But I've got no idea how to go about it. All I know about college is that it's for smart people and it's expensive.”

“Don't sell yourself short, Jimmy Lee. There are a lot of people in this world who sell themselves short. They don't try to achieve their dreams because they're too paralyzed by the prospect of failure. You can do it and I'll help you, if you want.”

At that moment, I remembered the words of my brother Edgel when he learned that Miss Singletary was my teacher.
You stay close to her. She's solid; she'll do right by you
. “I'd like that a lot, Miss Singletary.”

“Good. Why don't we get started this Saturday? We could do your clothes shopping in Athens and take a visit to Ohio University.”

“That would be great, but . . .”

“But . . .?”

“What would people say if you took me out shopping for clothes?”

She smiled. “I've got it under control, Jimmy Lee.” She tossed a blue notebook on my desk. Written across the top of the cover in perfect script was the statement,
Write an essay about the things you think about when you can't sleep.
“Now, get to work.”