Forty-Seven Hundredths

            by Lucien Kahn

 

I sit trembling in my seat as the race officials direct the 65-foot long boats to the starting line.  Clutching the neon green rubber grips of my oar, I let the golden blade rest on the water.

Daniel speaks into the microphone he wears around his head:  “We got this, guys.  Eyes forward, sit ready.”  On our coxswain’s command, we all sit up straight, bend our legs, slide up to the catch, and place our blades square in the water.  The eight of us pause in that position and wait for the officials to begin the race.  A solemn silence fills the air.  I feel my breathing, hear the water slap against the thin black walls of the shell.  This moment right before the race begins is the hardest because I have no control over what will happen next.  I can only wait.  Sitting at the starting line, I want this moment either to have passed or to be as far in the future as possible.

One of the officials in the tower speaks into her megaphone.  “All boats sit ready.”  She speaks the words she has said hundreds of times this weekend with no emotion.  “Attention…Row.”  Six boats surge forward, their bows rising out of the water.

This was the last race of the season for me.  I was a junior, and had greatly changed from the flabby freshman who walked into his first crew meeting unaware of all he was signing up for.  My mom dropped me off at Berkeley High for my first practice, innocent and empty-handed, wearing jeans and a t-shirt.  For the team, it was the second or third week of practice, but I had just learned when and where they met.  I walked into the “erg room” and saw a sea of people.  Some were sitting, some were standing, others were stretching, but all were talking.  There was a row of black ergometers lined up against the back wall, waiting.  It was loud and I sat down near a few other freshmen I recognized.  I didn’t know many; I’d just graduated from an eighth grade class of 36 and now felt like a speck in a class of 900.

I remember them laughing at racist jokes I didn’t think were funny.  I thought I felt uncomfortable until we started running.  Then I realized what uncomfortable was.  The denim of my jeans rubbed against my legs and sweat soaked through the fabric.  I went home exhausted, and when my mom asked how it went, I told her I needed a pair of running shorts.

 “Five…four…three…” I prepare to shift from the high strokes per minute we used to get the boat moving, to a more controlled rate.  “Settle in two…one…and settle.”  In unison, our legs come to a halt and we glide up the slides and drop our blades with a spray of water.  “Power…Ten...nine…” My legs begin to feel warm 200 meters into the race.

On my third day of practice I came prepared.  With water bottle in hand and wearing my red Berkeley High shorts, I walked into the erg room and pretended to laugh at more bad jokes.  We were all going to complete a 2k on the rowing machines today.  I learned that a 2k is a 2000 meter piece, the normal course distance for a race, and also one of the most painful experiences rowers undergo.  I sat on the rolling seat of the ergometer and held onto the handle.  When a coach said, “go,” I pulled with my arms and pushed with my legs, simulating the motion of rowing in a boat.  The rusty chain connected to the handle extended and the flywheel began to whir.

On the electronic screen attached to the wheel I watched the meters begin to fall away.  1850, 1840.  This isn’t so hard.  I looked over at Harris’s screen next to me and saw 1650.  Hmm, that’s funny.  When I finished ten minutes later, everyone was gone.  I was alone in the room except for the JV coxswain watching me.  I can imagine how I must have looked to her, a chubby failure who would never amount to much.

The string of red buoys is flying by.  To my right, in the corner of my eye, I see maroon jerseys.  Half a boat-length behind Marina Aquatic Center, we’re in last place.  C’mon, I urge myself, and slam my legs down.

My first race was on a winding course that snaked under bridges and through communities of houses right on the water.  People waved to us from their porches as we rowed by.  It felt like the longest piece of agony I would ever experience.  Twice my oar was sucked deep under the water and forced parallel to the boat.  The boat had to come to a full stop so I could pry it free.  “Catching a crab” is common in freshmen races but nevertheless I was humiliated and felt horrible that I had let my teammates down.  And they wouldn’t let me forget it.  Again and again my teammates referred back to that first race, “You mean the one where Luci caught like ten crabs.  Yeah.  Ha-ha.”  I questioned whether I could ever have the ability or strength to succeed in this brutal sport.  It took all the courage I had to show up at the next practice.

We pass the large bright orange ball disrupting the stream of small red ones.  “500 down, Power Ten, on this one!”  Kulunk-we rotate our oars out of the water.  Swish-we lower them into the water. Phwoosh-we slam our legs down, exhaling, hurling the boat forward.  “Three…two…” kulunk-swish, “one,” phwoosh.  I can hear Marina’s coxswain yelling wildly. This is good.  They’re scared.

 “Today you are going to run to Cal Memorial Stadium.  On the way up you will stay together in a pack.  Remember, cars are bigger than you are; don’t run red lights.”  For two blocks I stayed with the pack.  For two more I could still see them.  Then the sidewalk began sloping uphill and it was hopeless.  I looked ahead of me and saw a red light.  “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”  I would be able to breathe.  Using all the energy I had, I willed the light to stay red.  Just as I reached the corner, the green bulb lit brightly, and I cursed the Berkeley traffic engineers for their poor timing.

We’re even.  “Silent-ten to move away,” our coxswain whispered before going quiet.  In my head I count the numbers and feel the boat surge.  Yes.  Our attack is working; we are gaining.  My legs burn now.  My quads feel like a stovetop with all four burners on full blast.  It’s all mental, I say to myself, and I continue to count off each stroke in my head.

When I arrived at the stadium I felt like soup.  Walking down the bleachers to meet the rest of the team I wiped my face and gulped down water.  “That was a good little warm up,” said a senior.  “Now you’re ready to do some real work.”  This can’t be good, I thought, and lined up on the bottom bleacher with the others.

When I heard “go,” I pushed off the ground with my right foot and pulled up with my left.  Step after step after step I rose into a widening ring of blue and gold seats.  The steps got steeper and steeper and the power of gravity got stronger and stronger.  My legs were on fire.  I reached the final step and leaned over the ledge, my chest heaving.  The pink-tinged buildings of the city looked gorgeous.  The sun was setting and I could see the sparkling waters of the bay in the distance.  I turned and began to make my descent.  My legs were shaking now.  I could barely control their movements.  Looking down towards the field made me feel dizzy, and I thought I was going to fall.  Surely my legs could no longer support me.  One step at a time I made my way to the bottom walkway.  By the ninth repeat I was walking up the bleachers and my legs were shaking so hard that I had to sit down when I reached the top or I would have fallen over.

Forget about the pain.  I push my legs down harder than I ever had before.  Another orange ball passes; 1000 meters down.  My legs sear.  Someone is cutting them open with a red-hot knife.  Forget about the pain.  Phwoosh…Kulunk…Swish.

 “Mr. Lobo,” I called as I hustled to meet him outside his Spanish classroom.  He looked up as he was locking his door.  “Mr. Lobo, can I talk to you for a minute?”  I’d been putting this conversation off for three weeks now.  Making the decision itself was hard enough.

“Sure. What is it?”

“I’ve thought about this for a while and…I’m sorry…I don’t think I can really be on the chess team this year.”  His tan, bearded face scrunched up looking at me, deciphering the words I spoke.  “Coach just added another water practice on Thursdays, so now I practice every day after school and on Saturday.  Along with school work, there just isn’t time for chess.”

Since I was six years old, there had always been time for chess.  Even when I was playing Little League baseball or the saxophone, chess was always there, a constant.  I attended tournaments each year and with practice and study had become a strong player.  But now it looked like that part of my life was coming to a close, or at least an intermission.

I was spending more and more time with crew because I love it more than anything else.  Skimming a few inches above the water, flying almost.  That sensation when all eight rowers connect and the boat is really soaring, you can’t get anywhere else.

Another orange ball passes and now the string of red buoys changes to yellow, signifying the final 500 meters of the race.  Daniel calls for a power ten.  We are just ahead of Marina; I can’t tell where the other boats are.  They are close, within reach.  I can’t let up now; we’re almost there.  The buoys change color again-now to green-we are 250 meters from the finish.  I can hear the thousands of spectators screaming from the beach.  My legs are screaming too, but I know it will be over soon.

The results of CJ’s, the Southwest Regional Junior Rowing Championships, the largest juniors race on the West coast, decides who will earn a spot at Nationals and who will have to wait till next year.  Dozens of white tents are lined up along the beaches of Lake Natoma, where rowers and their families relax and watch the races.

At the Berkeley High tent, with my lunch in hand, I sat down on a tan plastic chair on the grass, overlooking the beach and the racecourse.  Alex looked down at the paper plate I held.  “That looks good,” he said taking a bite of pesto pasta from his own plate.  I looked at my lunch, trying to decide where to start.  The carrots or the cucumber slices, or the leaf of romaine.  I took the lettuce in hand and nibbled, watching the boats coming down the course and trying not to focus on the smells coming from the plates around me.  One fifty-five is the cutoff for lightweight rowers.  That number had been my target for the last six months.  Although I had grown nearly a foot, I was three pounds lighter than the chubby freshmen I had been three years earlier.  Now I was the tallest member of the lightweight team, and everyone was depending on me to make weight.

“What’d you weigh?” Cole asked.

“156.8,” I managed to say between bites.  “So coach told me I could feast.”

“Yeah.  You need to drop 2 pounds and you have till tomorrow morning.  You’re good to go.” 

“Cole, I figure that if I can go all season living off salads and without a bite of ice cream, then one more day is nothing.  And plus this lettuce is really good.”  That was the best leaf of lettuce I have ever eaten.

As each boat soars across the finish line an official sounds a horn.  I hear, “MREH,” then, “MREHHHHHH.”  My heart is beating like a hummingbird’s and I try to catch my breath.  We drift to a stop amidst the other eights.  I look to the shore and see a Berkeley parent signaling to us.  He holds up four fingers, then three, then shrugs his shoulders, palms open.  Other rowers around me lie down and let their oars lay relaxed on the water.  Grinning, I high-five Alex in front of me before turning to congratulate Stolcke behind me.  Daniel is talking to Los Gatos’ coxswain: “Do you know what happened?”

“Well, Pacific won, but…I really have no idea.”  All six boats floated there for a while congratulating the other teams on the great race, before finally turning and heading for the sandy shore.

We picked a bad year to be fast.  Down the entire course all six boats were neck and neck, each vying for that extra seat, that extra foot.  The finish was so close it took an hour for the results to be announced.  We huddled near the results board waiting for our finishing times to be posted.  Even the sixth place finish surpassed the winning times of the past ten years.  We came in fourth, less than half a second from the podium and a medal.  Although we had lost, I couldn’t help but smile; I had rowed the best race of my life.

We found some abandoned chairs and a platter of desserts.  The goodies disappeared quickly, each of us no longer needing to make weight.

“What if,” I said.  “What if we had pulled just a little harder for one stroke or…” I couldn’t answer that question, and neither could my teammates.  We carried the shells, oars, and rigging back to the truck and I tied the shells to the yellow trailer racks with thick canvas straps to make sure they could not budge.

During the long car-ride home, the depression hit.  I couldn’t stop thinking about the race and just how close we had come.  Those 47 hundredths of a second haunted me.  That night, and for the next week, I continued to reflect on the five feet that had kept me from going to nationals.  At home, after school I would stare at the photo finish online.  The time-lapse film bent oars into c-shapes, shrunk rowers’ heads and elongated our bow-deck.  But there were still 47 hundredths and 5 feet separating us from bronze and a flight to Cincinnati.

My season was over, but for our lightweight four, which did qualify for nationals, practice continued.  Coach asked a few of us if we wanted to row in a sparring boat against the four.  I eagerly volunteered.  I went to every extra practice and raced my teammates again and again, perfecting mid-race strategies that might turn the tide for them in a close race.  All the extra work we put in paid off.  Berkeley High captured the national championship in the lightweight-four event.

When I saw my teammates’ medals, the despair I had felt left me.  I had helped them prepare for victory, and finally I was ready to move on.  I remembered the lesson my chess teacher had instilled in me:  You have to put pieces on the board, make your moves, and take risks in order to have a shot at winning.  Making mistakes is part of the game he told me, and you learn more from a defeat than from a victory.

“How does one become a chess master?” he would say.  “He has to win a thousand games.  But first, he must lose a thousand games.”