A Good Sport
by VATERGrrl
"Marshall!" Coach Nimitz's voice carried easily from the front of the school bus to the back, where one of his star cross country runners alternated between poking his nose into a well-worn book and turning to one side to aim a poorly-stifled sneeze into a fist.
"Yeah, coach?" Cory Marshal hoped his voice didn't sound too distorted, but he opted for as few words as necessary to conceal any congestion.
"You coming down with something back there?"
"I hope not, Coach." He didn't want to flat-out lie, though the thought had briefly crossed his mind. Though Coach Nimitz taught the remedial math and reading classes at Bellevue High, that hardly made the cross-country and track and field coach an idiot. Far from it, the guy was sharper than tacks and could be twice as prickly when crossed.
"You hope not?" Coach got out of his seat and stalked down the aisle, the heads of the other runners turning to stare as he passed by their seats. "Marshall, we're going to be at KingCo in," he checked his digital watch. "Twenty minutes."
He found a seat opposite Cory, who tucked away his copy of The Palm at the End of the Mind into his small team-issued duffel and pushed his fisted hands deep into the pockets of his blue and gold letter jacket.
"Marshall, this is not the time to be messing with me."
"I'm not, Coach, really." Though he could feel the first inklings of another sneeze creeping up on him, he tried to keep his face neutral.
"Baker!" Coach Nimitz barked at the team's student assistant. "Toss me a towel out of the bag." A skinny, awkward frosh rushed to unzip the large duffel that traveled with the team to every meet and which sat on the side of the field at every practice. It bulged with two dozen or more thin, frequently-bleached terrycloth towels, all-purpose cloths which had probably mopped sweat off the basketball court, stanched a few hundred nosebleeds from accidental collisions during football practices, even rolled up tight and pressed into service as makeshift splints for sprained ankles and wrists.
"Here, Coach." The kid's high, wobbly voice made Cory feel a bit bad, but not as bad as when the coach caught the towel mid pitch without even looking up, then balled it up and tossed it toward Cory's chest as if the terrycloth was a basketball.
"If you're going to sneeze -- and don't bother telling me you aren't -- at least save the rest of us from it."
Cory gulped, clutching the towel in both hands. It was bad enough that his throat felt hot and raw, but now his coach wouldn't do him the courtesy of looking away and his nose wouldn't cooperate with a well-timed, expected sneeze. Instead, Cory could only snuffle and rub at his nose with the harsh texture of the terrycloth.
"I don't have any Kleenex, if that's what you're waiting on, Marshall." Coach Nimitz pronounced the brand name derisively.
"No, Coach, that's not…" Cory forced himself to pause, inhale deeply through his nose and hope the strong smell of bleach emanating from the towel would trigger his allergies. "Not it. I feel good enough to run -- this should all go away, once I'm out there on the trail."
"You're sure?" The coach looked unconvinced, kept staring at his star runner as if almost willing something to happen to either prove or disprove the kid's claims.
"Yeah, Coach, it's juhhh-- " Cory fidgeted nervously, the urge to sneeze rebounding at exactly the wrong time. Trying to hold it back was making his eyes water, not what he wanted his coach to see, but he couldn't help it. "Just allergies."
"Really." A light mist had been falling outside ever since the team had boarded the bus for the final meet of the season, an all-county invitational for the top runners from each qualifying school in King County. It was Cory's last run with the team, his last chance to try to contribute something, before he graduated in the spring.
"Id fee--" Cory pulled in a deep breath, a full-fledged tear trailing in earnest down his check as he tried to get his hands to stop trembling so badly. "'Scuse be a segod, Coach--" He turned away from Coach Nimitz, hiding his face in the towel and finally letting go with a long, drawn-out triple. "Ubt-chshhh. Tshhh. Huh-tshhhh." Another breath, followed by a muffled sniffle, then "Hshhh. Tshhh. Tshhhh."
The pattern repeated itself twice more, long enough for his teammates to jeer him and Baker, the "gopher," to offer an earnest "Bless you."
Coach Nimitz, unlike everyone else on the bus, said nothing, just watched as Cory swiped at the corners of his eyes before blowing his nose into the towel, a long and wet clearing that ended with an unexpected cough.
"That doesn't sound good, Marshall."
"I'b wor- worg-- uhh-chh-huhhh! Worgig od id, Coach." The smell of bleach wafting up from the towel was starting to aggravate Cory's symptoms, and he ventured a final swipe of the terry under his nostrils before setting the towel aside and daring to pull out a pale blue handkerchief from an inner pocket of his letter jacket. Though he knew his coach would interpret the gesture as a rather ominous sign, an indication that one of his best cross country runners wasn't up to the task of completing a demanding, five kilometer course of dirt, occasional spots of loose gravel, uphill slogs and downhill sprints in record time, he shook open the cloth in full view, pressed it around his nose and mouth, then sneezed twice more, slow and quiet "Huh-tchhh!" bursts that he hoped would be the end of it.
"Bless you." Coach's voice was brusque, as if he rarely or even ever bothered to say anything to someone after they'd sneezed, "I'll put you in the fourth heat, Marshall, but only if I think you're up to it."
"Thags, Coach." Cory knew not to push anything, and his acknowledgement was as much for the blessing as it was for the more magnanimous gesture of actually allowing him to have a chance to run, blooming cold notwithstanding.
Coach Nimitz grunted, stood up from his seat opposite Cory to walk back up to the front of the bus and consult with the driver. In the last fifteen minutes of the ride, Cory didn't bother to put the handkerchief back in his pocket, using it to take an occasional rub under his nose or, a few times, confine and muffle another sneeze.
Once they arrived at the field where the cross country meet was to take place, Coach Nimitz got off the bus first, as was his usual right and privilege, followed by Cory's teammates, then Cory himself, with Baker trailing behind, lugging the gear bag.
"You sure you've got that?" Cory looked back toward the freshman, who was struggling with the weight and size of the bag, his breath whistling slightly on every intake.
"Yup." Baker smiled gamely, his grin growing wider when Cory slowed his own pace to let the kid catch up, then subtly reaching down with his free hand to pick up a strap on the side of the bag and clutching it casually so no one else could see he was helping.
"Gonna try out for the team next year?"
Baker's smile faded, disappeared altogether. "Can't. I have real bad asthma. My folks would freak out if I even thought about athletics, and I'd probably pass out after one lap around the track."
"Sorry to hear that." Cory let the subject drop, helped the freshman drag the heavy gear bag to the space that had been marked out for them, then stood and waited for Coach Nimitz to call him over for a number.
"Here, Marshall, take off your jacket, pin this on your tank, then put your jacket right back on over it. No sense in you catching an even worse cold than the one you have now."
The command left Cory speechless, and he could only fumble with the safety pins already attached to his paper number, 267, as he attached it to the center of his blue, white and yellow running jersey. He had on matching blue, white and yellow running shorts under his sweat pants, but he'd leave the pants on until just a few minutes before he was to be called to the starting line for the last heat of the day.
The next twenty five minutes passed in a blur of colors and bodies, groups of runners from various high schools let out of the "trough" and out onto the course in waves. There was a big lull after the first heat left, but after that, it seemed there was just a continuous stream of bodies coming down the roped-off chute which led to the finish line.
"Okay, go to it, kid." Coach Nimitz told Cory, finally, after fifteen of the twenty-five minutes of the race had passed without a noticeable sneeze or particularly prolonged sniffle. Cory rushed to pull off his sweats and jacket, slipped into his spikes, and walked around the staging area to warm up. When a ref announced the start of heart four, Cory took his place in the pack of other runners, right between a tall, muscular kid in Sammamish red and black and another in Mercer Island purple and gold.
At the shrill of a starter's whistle, they all took off in a mass of bodies, quickly forming a line from fastest to slowest as they headed for the first uphill portion of the run. Cory allowed himself to concentrate on the feel of his spikes digging into the grass, then the loosely packed dirt, as he kept up, stride for stride, with the first four runners in his heat. He liked to start quick, then fade just a little in mid-course, fake people out, and save up his energy for an all-out sprint near the finish line.
This time, however, he could feel his best time and his power slipping away from him. Though he tried to keep up, one runner after the other edged past him, until he knew there were only three behind him. As the course veered into a wooded area, and the wan sunlight they'd enjoyed on prior portions of the trail faded, he felt the cold, damp weather more acutely than he'd ever recalled it in the past, and he had to waste a second or two to drag his forearm under his nose and snuffle.
"Hey! Help!" Cory wasn't sure he'd heard it, at first, the yelling. It was coming from below, from a steep ravine just to the left of the trail, and Cory ran another twenty yards before he heard it again, this time more clearly. "Please! Help! Don't run off!"
Cory dug in his spikes, skidded to a stop and then made the deliberate choice to stop and investigate. Coach Nimitz would probably blow his top, ban him from the end-of-season get together and maybe even rip his letter of recommendation for college into a thousand little pieces, but something inside him couldn't keep running toward the finish line without at least looking over the edge of the trail into the ravine.
"Hey!" He yelled back, carefully approaching the edge and peering down. "Anyone down there?"
"Here!" The voice was louder now, if strained and hoarse, and as Cory scanned the twigs and mossy patches on the bank of the ravine, he spotted a flash of red and yellow on what looked like a small ledge or outcropping in the ravine.
"You okay?" Cory recognized the colors as those of Bellevue's main rival, Newport High, and as he took a second and third look, he saw a runner, probably his own age, curled around himself, one leg sticking out under him at a weird angle. The kid was reaching toward his ankle, but not touching it, and Cory knew that was a bad sign. "What happened, Newport?"
The runner looked up, gasped at the movement, and then looked back at his leg. "I was running along, in the first heat, and I got shoved over by another guy. He tripped me, nailed me with his spikes, and I couldn't keep on the path."
"Can you get out of there?" Cory realized the stupidity of his question, but the other runner didn't seem to care, or was in too much pain to be sarcastic.
"No. I've been yelling for help ever since I fell in here, and you're the first guy who bothered to stop and look." He grimaced. "Everyone else, they just kept running."
"I'll go get your coach, okay? Tell me your name -- I can't just call you Newport, right?"
"Devon," the kid said. "You're Bellevue?"
"Yeah, Cory, actually, but you can call me Bellevue."
"Cool, Bellevue -- Cory."
"Hang on, I'll go get your coach, and some medics, okay?" Cory straightened up from the crouch he'd assumed, looked around for some sort of identifiable landmark. Finding none, he stripped off his tank and used the straps to tie it to a tree near the edge of the trail. "Give me ten minutes, man."
"Hurry," Devon grunted. "My ankle hurts like hell -- I think I broke it."
Cory couldn't see Devon's ankle well enough to ascertain its condition, but he was willing to bet it had swelled up considerably, and was probably still swelling. "Hang on, I'll be back." It felt like a frail assurance, but Cory dug his spikes back into the trail and set off at as fast a pace as he dared, not caring at that point that the trail ahead of him was absolutely clear of other runners. All that mattered was getting to Coach Nimitz, and the Newport coach, to report on Devon's condition.
Moisture ran down from Cory's scalp into his eyes, and in rivulets down his pectorals and abs, and he couldn't tell if it was sweat or rain. Again, he didn't care -- it didn't matter, not when someone else was in pain and waiting on him to get help. Even when he could feel his nose running, he ignored it until it threatened to drip off of his upper lip, then he haphazardly swiped his forearm under his nose and snuffled, keeping up his pace as best he could.
"Coach! Coach!" Cory started yelling as soon as the finish line was in sight, trying to not break his stride until he was past the line, then he hunched over and placed his forearms on his thighs, gulping in air. "Coach Nimitz! I need some help!"
Cory had never seen his coach run so fast, or would have, had he not been staring at the ground, concentrating on willing his breathing to slow down.
"Marshall! What the hell happened? Where's your number? You can't record your time without that number!"
"Coach . . .ravine . . .Newport . . . injured. Help."
"What the hell?"
Cory tried again, taking in a deep, slow breath before answering. "There's a kid from Newport . . . in a ravine. Broke his ankle . . .I couldn't get him out. Snff! Need medics and a backboard."
"Where?"
"Two kilometers back, middle of the route. Snff!" His nose was running in earnest, and he tried another swipe of his forearm along with a concentrated snuffle to try to relieve it. "My tank is back there, tied to a tree."
"Roger!" Coach Nimitz yelled in the direction of the huddled coaches, and a tall, skinny guy wearing a red and yellow Newport High windbreaker came out of the pack, approaching the other coach and the shirtless runner cautiously. "Marshall here says one of your guys is hurt."
"Devon," Cory managed, sniffling again and straightening up to look both his coach and the Newport coach in the eye. "He said his name was Devon. Hurt his ankle, maybe broke it. Needs a medic."
The Newport coach frowned, then gestured frantically toward two paramedics who were sitting in folding chairs near the back of their ambulance. It was standard procedure to have a unit at all meets, just in case, but they rarely were called upon to do anything.
When they noticed the gesture, they came running, and after consulting with both coaches, they opened the back doors of the ambulance and brought out a backboard and a big, gray wool blanket, which they secured to the board with a series of long, dark blue straps.
"Marshall here," Coach Nimitz pointed to Cory, "found the other kid. How far out did you say he was?"
"Two kilometers, I think. At the ravine." Cory shivered briefly, the excess heat his body had generated during his sprint dissipating in the cool, damp afternoon air. Everyone else was so focused on getting to the Newport runner, they didn't seem to notice, just began jogging back up the trail where Cory indicated.
Seven minutes later, Cory spotted his tank top, flapping in a weak breeze, and pointed to it. "There! Right there, that's where he went over."
The two paramedics went to work immediately, one unfurling a length of rope and the other using the rope to lower himself and the back board into the ravine, as near as possible to where Devon, the injured runner, lay on the small shelf. Once the first medic went down, the other followed, and in a series of quick, practiced movements, they assessed the status of the patient, found he was conscious and at least slightly mobile, and loaded him onto the backboard, placing the gray wool blanket carefully on top of him and then strapping him in securely with the long, dark blue straps.
Coach Nimitz, the Newport coach, and Cory, had the task of pulling the backboard, and Devon, up out of the ravine, pulling from one end while the paramedics pushed from the bottom. Once Devon was safely out of the ravine, the coaches placed the backboard on the ground, then extended their own hands and arms to help pull the medics up onto the trail.
Now that Devon was closer, Cory could see how pale the kid was, how pinched his face looked. The blanket was covering his injured ankle, but Cory was willing to bet, based on the first aid courses he'd taken in junior high, that the ankle in question was swollen up to three times its size, and was probably a hot, angry purple-red shade.
"Coach, it hurts." Devon looked up at his coach, who was standing at the top of the backboard.
"Okay, guys, on the count of three, lift. One, two, and lift!' The paramedics' instructions were concise, and with two people on each side to carry the backboard, it was comparatively light work. The Newport coach walked slowly at the head of the backboard, where Devon could see him, and spoke in soft, measured tones to try to keep the athlete calm.
Halfway to the finish line, Cory felt a sneeze surging up, and did all he could to stifle it. He knew it would hurt Devon like hell if he jostled the backboard, so he pinched his nose hard between thumb and forefinger, allowing himself a quiet "Nnnhhkk!" and a bob of his head. When that didn't seem to relieve the pressure entirely, he turned from his position at Devon's left, uninjured foot, to appeal to the Newport coach. "Uhb, sir? Could you get this haddle for be, please?"
The other coach -- Roger, Cory thought he'd heard Nimitz refer to him -- wrinkled his brow briefly, trying to decipher Cory's congestion-distorted request, but hurried down to take the grip from Cory when he heard the young man's breath beginning to hitch and his shoulders tensing in preparation "Got it."
Cory took a few steps away from the group, which had stopped in confusion, cupped his bare hands around his nose and mouth, and rocked forward under the force of an unrestrained, particularly explosive and wet "Uhh-hehtchooo! Heh-tshooo! Eh-tchooo!"
"Bless you." Three different voices sounded in unison, though Cory didn't think he'd heard his own coach in the chorus.
"Thag y--" He tried to choke out a thanks, but found himself pressing the heels of his hands harder up under his nose against a follow-up "Heh-tshh-hooo!" It was completely unlike him, to sneeze so loudly, but he couldn't help it. The rain, the cool breeze blowing over his shoulders and wet hair, and the draining run, had sapped whatever reserve he usually had to hold back or even merely diminish a sneeze.
"Son?" An unfamiliar baritone voice caused him to turn back around to face the group, though he didn't drop his hands back down. "I think maybe you could use this." The Newport coach was taking a handkerchief from the back pocket of his chinos, and he thoughtfully shook it out to his full, unfolded size before offering it to Cory.
"Oh, uhb, thag you." Cory accepted the cloth with one hand still cupped around his nose, slightly surprised that a complete stranger would come to his aid like this. He would have expected it from his father, Dr. Stevens, even a few of his teachers, with the implicit demand that he use it, launder it, and return it post haste. But this guy, this "Coach Newport" as Cory had begun to think of the tall, quiet guy with the soothing voice, didn't know Cory from a hole in the ground.
"Sounds like you have quite a cold going." Cory was glad he had the excuse of turning away from the group again and blowing his nose, so he didn't have to look at his own coach, whom he suspected would be scowling at him. Instead, he muttered a "Yezzir" to "Coach Newport," then continued the trudge toward the finish line. Freed of the burden of carrying the backboard Cory could concentrate on trying to conserve his body heat, conceal the handkerchief in his hand, and not hold up the paramedics and the two coaches from getting Devon to the ambulance. He had to stop a few times, very briefly, to turn his head to the side and sneeze, but now that he'd been "outed" and he had something to sneeze into other than his bare hands, he felt marginally less miserable.
As the group cleared the wooded portion of the trail and came out to the final ten yards before the finish line, all of the Newport team swarmed around the backboard, taking over for Coach Nimitz, demanding to know from Devon what exactly had happened and whose ass needed to be kicked.
Coach Nimitz pulled Cory off to the side, towards where his own teammates stood huddled around, confused about their standing at the meet. They'd seen him run across the finish line without his jersey, which they knew meant instant disqualification, and now here he was, with his jersey on, and Coach Nimitz beside him. Only Baker, the awkward, gangly frosh "gopher" dared to come forward and speak, holding Cory's letter jacket and sweatpants.
"I thought you could use these. And a towel, I guess, right?"
Cory mustered a smile for the eager, nervous kid. "Thanks, Kenny. I owe you one."
Kenny smiled right back, appearing to flush a faint pink with embarrassment. "I'll go get you that towel, you don't want to put this stuff on when you're still wet."
His teammates trailing him to a bench, Cory slumped down and placed both jacket and sweats to one side, raising the handkerchief he'd been using to his mouth to cough into then swipe again at his nose.
"Men, go get on the bus. We'll be there in a minute." Coach Nimitz ordered the rest of his runners to back away from the bench, giving Cory some space. When Kenny Baker turned to leave, Nimitz barked out, "You, Baker, stick right here and get me that towel you promised."
"Coach, please, doad take it out od hib." Cory pleaded weakly, struggling to peel his wet tank top off. "I was the wud who did subthig stupid."
"No." Nimitz waited a beat, sighed. "You didn't do anything stupid, Marshall. If it was stupid, then it's the kind of stupid we need a lot more of in this world."
Cory looked up to meet his coach's gaze. The man's tone had taken on an odd softness, and Cory thought maybe he'd spiked a raging fever and delirium to boot when Nimitz fielded a towel tossed to him by Baker, used it to scrub Cory's hair, face and upper body dry, then set it aside and peeled off his own extra-large sweatshirt to fit over Cory as if the senior cross country runner was a rag doll in need of being dressed. The sweatshirt retained all of the coach's considerable body heat, even though it was slightly damp from the run/walk they'd both taken.
"Coach?"
"Cory." It was the first time Cory could recall the coach actually addressing him by his first name -- it had always been "Marshall" this or "Marshall" that, in the masculine cool high school athletics seemed to thrive on.
"I should have figured it out earlier in the trip, maybe even when you showed up to get on the bus this morning. You looked like hell, and you were sneezing every four minutes or so --"
"Dough, I--"
"You were, Marshall. It's not worth lying about it now, and you're not very good at it, anyway. But, I wanted to get everyone on the field, get you all into the race, and I guess I figured you'd want one last chance to run with the team before you're off to college."
He paused, assessed the student before him. "Blow your nose, kid, it's running faster than you did today."
Cory did as he was told, and after a few rather prolonged blows, Coach Nimitz seemed satisfied. "Good."
"Now, I know you weren't feeling one hundred percent, and you went out there and gave it your best, anyway."
"I let the team down, Coach," Cory protested again. "I probably disqualified all of us."
"You saved that kid's life, Cory. That's not nothing."
"I didn't save his life, Coach -- that's a little melodramatic."
"You stopped and helped him, when no one else bothered to do a damn thing. You know how long he was in that ravine?"
"Huh-uh."
"He went out with the first heat, and he was looking good, really good, strong and fast. You went out with the fourth heat, and you were the only person who stopped and looked for him and got him help." Coach Nimitz cleared his throat, and Cory thought the guy's eyes looked suspiciously shiny. "You sacrificed your own race, your last race, to help him. I don't know about you, but I'd trade all my fastest athletes, all my winners" -- he emphasized the word with air quotes -- "for a little more of the sportsmanship you showed out here today."
Cory didn't know what to say in response to his coach's speech, the longest string of sentences he'd ever heard out of the guy in the three years he'd run varsity cross country, and was almost glad when a sneeze -- or, more likely, a whole spate of them -- bubbled up near the surface, and he had to dip his head down to cover them. "Huh-uhhb-tchhh! Tch-huhhh! Chhh-hhhuh! Snfff! Oh, ghuuh-utchhh! Tchhh! Tchhh!" Sniffling seemed to be counter productive -- every time he tried, it made him sneeze again, but it was also hard to draw in a deep, full breath through his mouth and stop the cycle from repeating itself.
"Kehh -- Keddy?" Cory tried pulling the hanky he had been clutching to his nose a fair distance away, even though he figured his nose was probably streaming, and replaced the cloth with the back of his left hand. "You stihhh-ishhh! Still have by jacked?"
"Right here." Baker draped the jacket over Cory's shoulders, tried not to notice when the older boy swiped a bare hand under his nose and slapped the used handkerchief onto the bench with the other, then darted his free hand into a pocket and drew out the pale blue cloth he'd used earlier.
"Oh, thad's beh-heh-eshh! Bedder." Cory didn't bother to unfold the cloth, simply pinched the thick square around his nose and blew out as much congestion as he could before taking a few tiny, experimental sniffs. Whatever had made his allergies kick in on top of his cold -- a new fabric softener or dryer sheet, he reasoned, that was on the `kerf he'd been given -- wasn't on his own. Just that small change calmed his over-reactive nose, and though he was still grateful for the Newport coach's chivalry, there was an undeniable comfort in the familiar unscentedness of his own handkerchief.
"Let's get you on the bus, Marshall. You can take your spikes off when you feel up to it." Coach Nimitz helped Cory to a standing position, supported him with an arm around his shoulders that, from a distance, looked just casual enough to seem acceptable and natural, congratulatory male bonding rather than a sign of weakness on the runner's part.
"Ogay." Cory no longer had the energy to argue, nor did he want to. All the fight had gone out of him, and all he wanted now was to slump down on one of the seats of the school bus, maybe use his small duffel as a pillow, and see if he could manage a nap on their way back to school. He didn't even particularly care if his teammates wanted to give him a hard time -- he'd most likely sleep right through all of their insults, though part of him reasoned that Coach Nimitz would put an immediate halt to any complaints.
True to his hopes, Cory flopped down into a seat on the bus a few minutes later, Coach Nimitz's voice washing over him in words he figured were meant for his teammates but which he was too tired to decipher and the rumble of the engine and then the purr of the tires on pavement lulled him into a deep, restorative sleep.
Notes: I've had part of this vignette stuck in my head for years, and finally I found a plausible way to make it a full sneezefic. I also wanted to have fun with male bonding (or non-bonding) , and what I imagine high school sports and coaches *might* be like. I know nothing about cross-country running at the high school or college level, so all the mistakes in here are completely mine. A stand-alone story to capture an "event in the life" of one ongoing character. Oh, and the title blows big chunky chunks, can't think of anything that's just right. Feedback: Please! ;)